


Are You Ready For Another Bad Poem?

by MelodramaticMrTails



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Ableism, Body Horror, Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8532073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelodramaticMrTails/pseuds/MelodramaticMrTails
Summary: Ryan has never considered himself to be a very religious man. Of course, that doesn’t mean the strings of his life aren’t being pulled by a greater force anyways. Can he figure out what's going on before it's too late? Can he successfully flirt with death? Probably not.





	1. Carnival Creature

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fic challenge I did with a friend all through October for reaper!ray. It was long and hard with a surprising lack of sexual content so there you go.

That does look like the guy. Ryan looks at the picture he’s been given, then to the man walking down the street, then back to his picture. He’s obviously smart enough to know these two people are not the same guy but similarly, he knows it’s no coincidence they look so a like. Or maybe it is. He’s going to kill this guy anyways, of course. This task becomes much easier when the guy takes a turn down a dark alley where no one can see him. Ryan loves these kind of guys.

  
It’s not very busy in this area at this time of day so Ryan is free to jog across the street and into the alley to meet with his new friend. As it turns out, this supposed shortcut he was trying to take ends behind a building at a very solid brick wall and when he turns around, Ryan is already behind him. He bumps into Ryan’s chest and quickly backs up in confusion, shaking his head a bit before looking up at him.

  
Perhaps startled by Ryan’s face paint, he opens his mouth to yelp and Ryan decides to do him the favor of not letting him do that. Swiftly, he presses his gloved hand to the man’s mouth and shoves him hard against the brick wall.

  
“Calm down,” Ryan assures gently. This does little to calm the man. “Do you know the Pig Prince? And think very carefully as to which answer will make me let you go.” The man stares at him in sheer horror, likely more from being cornered in a dark alley with a large man in skull paint than anything else. He doesn’t initially make any reaction, a wise reaction, but eventually shakes his head adamantly.

  
“You had to think about that for a long time,” Ryan rumbles. Again, the man shakes his head affirmatively. “Do you know Korta?” This time he is greeted with a much more deliberate pause which is far more of an answer than he could ever give. Slowly, he nods. Ryan shows him the knife in his other hand as he uncovers his mouth, just enough to let him speak. At such a close range, he can feel the man’s pulse skyrocketing. If he tries to scream, all the better.

  
“S-she’s my brother’s girlfriend,” he explains simply. Ah, that makes sense. They do look very similar. Whether or not this guy is aware that his ‘brother’ is up to no good or not remains to be seen. Not that it matters much to Ryan. He is here to send a message to Korta and while this may not be exactly how his employer said to do it, he knows what he’s doing. Ryan covers his mouth again and in the same gesture, stabs him hard in the throat.

  
The man only struggles for a flimsy, weak moment as Ryan jerks his sharp knife through his jugular and any other juicy bits in the way. Once he finally goes limp, Ryan pulls his knife free and lets the body fall. He wipes the blade clean on his jacket before spinning it around his fingers and returning it to its sheathe under his shirt. Now he just has to find the other brother.

  
“That was fucking brutal,” a voice says. Ryan legitimately jumps. He is so hyper aware of his surroundings both visually and audibly that the fact that someone has managed to sneak up on him is unheard of. When he whips around, sure enough there’s some tiny lad in his dumb purple hoodie. Where did he come from? Caring little of Ryan or the fact that he just murdered someone in cold blood, the lad walks past him and crouches down beside the newly deceased.

  
“What are you doing?” Ryan snaps, already reaching to draw his knife again. The lad looks up at him curiously, arching a brow before looking back down to the body. “I’m talking to you,” he growls out. His nerves are already frayed not by having a witness but by how this clumsy little guy could have ever possibly snuck up on him.

  
“Yeah man, I noticed,” the lad assures, going back to ignoring Ryan without a care. Ryan is hesitant to lunge at him for reasons he can’t quite place. He can only watch, in something akin to horror, as the lad reaches his hand through the dead guy’s face and pulls out- a CD? Aside from what he pulls out, there doesn’t seem to actually be any physical contact, rather the passing through of things that should never pass through each other. Ryan stares on as the lad takes the CD, smaller than most, and twirls it in his fingers. It looks like a PSP disk which Ryan only thinks because the lad proceeds to pop it into a PSP. What the hell is going on here?

“What did you do?” Ryan demands, both morbidly curious and vaguely worried. The lad ignores him again, tapping away at his little device for a moment before laughing.

  
“Haven’t had someone walk so close to the line for a while,” he murmurs as he pulls the game out again. Game? Ryan isn’t sure what it actually is or where he ‘pulled’ it from. The dead man looks no different after being touched by this strange lad than he did after Ryan murdered him. The lad takes the disk and in an even stranger, more horrid turn of events, a long jagged scars appears on his throat where he shoves the disk and it promptly disappears.

  
The most worryingly part of any of this, aside from the most obvious, is that Ryan is scared. He can’t place why, this lad certainly doesn’t scare him, but he is. He can feel the dread cling to his heart and his fight or flight response skyrocket. Truth be told, Ryan is not a man who is scared of many things and feeling like this causes him extreme anxiety and distress in a way he finds hard to hide at the moment. Especially when the lad finally turns on him.

  
Ryan jolts back a little. It’s worse now that the lad is actually looking at him. Aside from the scar on his throat that comes and goes as it pleases, he looks normal. He also doesn’t. It’s as though Ryan isn’t supposed to be looking at him; as if what he sees isn’t real and he knows it but his eyes can’t possibly comprehend it. It’s as if to truly see who this guy is, Ryan requires a sense he doesn’t possess.

  
“You can see me,” he says. Ryan isn’t sure that’s completely accurate. “What do I look like to you?” The question forces Ryan to re-examine the lad a little better this time. So drawn to his presence and yet still so appalled by it, he had been too distracted to really take in what the lad looks like. Upon further scrutiny, Ryan knows him.

  
“Someone- I killed a long time ago,” Ryan answers. He’s not sure why he bothers, why he doesn’t even consider lying, but he doesn’t.

  
“Huh,” the lad answers. “What was its name?”

“His name was Ray,” Ryan murmurs quietly. The stranger makes a gesture across his throat, the scar like someone had cut his throat appearing with it, and he smirks a little.

  
“That’s new,” he says. “You can call me Ray. I take it you’re not a religious man?”

  
“Not generally,” Ryan admits. This is becoming weirder and more unsettling by the moment but he can’t look away and he can’t leave- he doesn’t want to. Something about this lad, about Ray, lures him in like an animal to slaughter. Ray snorts a laugh.

  
“Cool but if you were to beg for your life right now, who would it be to?” he asks.

  
“Are you threatening me?” Ryan replies. As sharp of a question as it is, he legitimately can not tell. He can’t tell a lot of things about Ray right now.

  
“Do you feel threatened?” Ray asks. Ryan forgoes answering.

  
“The moon, I guess,” he answers instead.

  
“Sure, just like everyone else,” Ray nods agreeably, obviously not too impressed. Not that Ryan is looking to impress him or anyone else for that matter. “Have you figured it out yet?”

  
“You’re Moonlight,” Ryan murmurs. Ray grins.

  
“Moonlight, death, grim reaper, ect,” he lists. “Different people call me different things in different places.”

  
“What’s your real name, then?” Ryan inquires pointedly.

  
“Why would I have one?” Ray answers. “I am a concept.” That- makes sense in theory, Ryan supposes. However, as he can clearly see and interact with Ray, obviously that statement doesn’t hold up very well.

  
“You don’t look like Moonlight,” Ryan murmurs.

  
“What am I supposed to look like?” Ray asks.

  
“Skeletal, usually,” Ryan offers. Ray gestures to his face.

  
“I don’t think both of us need to look like that,” he assures. Ryan is glad his face paint covers the slight tinge of his face. Of course he meets death in skull face paint. Not that he’s surprised, Ryan was pretty sure he was going to die in this paint anyways but he never took into consideration actually coming face to face with a personification of death itself. He changes the topic.

  
“I take it people usually don’t see you,” he says instead.

  
“Not usually,” Ray confirms. “And not usually like you do.”

  
“So why can I see you?” Ryan asks. “Am I- dying?” He knew he would, he’s always known he would, but he didn’t expect it to be quite like this.

  
“Nah,” Ray says. “I mean, you’re all dying from the moment you're born but that’s just the blessing of mortal life. The moon has a name for people like you. It doesn’t translate obviously but to you it would mean something like ‘asteroid brings deliverance’ or more accurately, ‘she brings deliverance’.” The way he makes it sounds, Ryan isn’t fully sure. There’s a reason he can see Ray and since he can, well, he thinks he can start calling himself a religious man again or at any rate, a believer.

  
“What am I supposed to take from this?” Ryan inquires, crossing his arms somewhat stubbornly.

  
“Whatever you want,” Ray shrugs. “I got shit to do.” With that, he disappears as easily as he had appeared. The paralyzing fear Ryan felt in his bones disappears with him, leaving him free to move and look around again. That was bizarre and now that it’s over, Ryan can’t be sure it even happened. It feels so surreal. He glances down at the body again before hurriedly making to leave the alley before someone really does find him.

  
He knew he should have never taken this job.

  
\- x -

  
Ryan goes to church for the first time in a very long time. He washes his face and grooms his hair and even wears his nice clothes. He barely recognises himself. He puts some money in the donation box in the entryway and sits in the front pews where he can see the moon hang in the dark sky out the window. He stays through the whole sermon, even as he starts nodding off, and even stays after a bit to chat with strangers and have a cookie or two.

  
Honestly, Ryan isn’t sure what he expected. Afterwards he feels very weird and doesn’t have any fewer questions than he arrived with. He’s never doing that again. What he does know, however, is that he needs to see Ray again. He tells himself it’s just to get answers but a part of him knows it’s just because Ray is so alluring. Something just draws him in; like an asteroid to a larger body.

  
He’s got to see Ray.


	2. Super Massive Black Hole

“Korta will kill you!”

  
It is not often Ryan kills in his own home. It’s not that he’s against it in any way, it’s just that it’s messy and he likes not having to come home to clean his house every day. Plus there’s the whole ‘find out where you live’ thing that he tries to avoid as much as possible. As his paranoia is through the roof on a _good_ day, his home is just absolutely covered with various traps to prevent people from just waltzing it but it never hurts to be sure.

  
Hotel rooms are nice, though. Ryan dishes out some of his very heavy savings to rent a nice room very high up where no one will hear a thing. Not hear him scream and certainly not hear Ryan’s conversation with Ray. Granted Ray even shows up. He has to, doesn’t he? He is Moonlight and a soul can not pass onto the Moon without him. If there is more than one Moonlight, well, Ryan simply does not know but this is as good of a time as any to find out he supposes.

  
“Let me go!” his captive shouts. “I’ll kill you myself!”

  
“Shh,” Ryan replies. “Shh. You are _so_ loud.” He holds his gloved hand out as if to cover the man’s mouth, gesturing him to be quiet and the man fumes.

  
“You’ll regret this!” he yells, struggling to get his feet free so he can kick. Ryan sighs loudly, picking up his roll of tape and ripping a piece off. He presses it firmly against the man’s mouth to quiet him at least for a little while. It won’t matter much after that. He just wants to make sure he’s ready. Last time he felt an unshakable fear that left him, for a large part, unable to even move how he wanted. The more he thinks back on the encounter, the more he is sure that he could not have attacked Ray even if the thought had crossed his mind- and it should have.

  
That’s not going to happen this time. Ryan has no intention of trying to attack Ray, he isn’t completely dense, but he would like to be able to react and simply act the way he wants to. The idea that he would be unable to do that riddles him with the same anxiety as before. Ray isn’t scary his presence is simply- immense. The man squirms viciously behind him. Ryan glances over his shoulder.

  
Again, he sighs and unsheathes his knife to approach the man. He points the sharp tip under his chin, stalling him immediately.

  
“You should be grateful,” Ryan urges. “I am delivering you to the moon.” He pauses, glancing off to the side for a moment before looking back. “Or at least to a new life. Somehow I doubt the moon wants you right now.” He makes more loud, muffled noises. This guy just doesn’t want to see reason, honestly. No wonder someone wants him dead.

  
“Alright, fine,” he scoffs. “If you’re going to make this difficult.” Ryan takes his knife in his fist and jabs the guy in the temple with a firm blow. There’s less blood this time, thankfully. He knew a towel would be enough. Though the man hangs on for quite a while, he eventually succumbs to death just like the others. It’s really quite unavoidable. Ryan pulls his knife free.

  
“You again,” Ray says.

  
“Me again,” Ryan grins, cleaning the blade of his knife with his handkerchief. Ray looks unimpressed. Ryan frowns a little but he moves out of the way so Ray can approach the body. Much like before, he reaches out and pulls something from the void of the dead man's head. This time, however, it’s not a CD but a cartridge and instead of a PSP, he pulls out a gameboy. Ryan isn’t sure how much of this is simply his perception of Ray and the Ray he knew and how much is actually what Moonlight is doing. How much of him can actually be perceived?

  
“Most people change their entire lives after seeing me,” Ray informs, taking the cartridge out of his game and pressing it into the scar on his throat. The scar sticks around this time. It was so personal and yet, it’s never personal with Ryan. He’s never gets that close, that intertwined with anyone. Ever.

  
“I went to church,” Ryan assures him. Ray stares at him. The fear returns. “Asteroids bring deliverance.”

  
“Cute,” he replies flatly. “You don’t even know what that means, dude.”

“I want to,” Ryan says eagerly.

“Humans always want to,” Ray answers. That’s fair. For a moment, they only stare at each other. Ryan isn’t sure what else to say, how to convince Ray to give him information. He’s not even dying so it’s not like he can make a deal with Moonlight. That doesn’t sound like the best idea, anyways. Oddly enough, though, Ray seems content with simply staring back at him, not saying a word.

  
“Are you going to, uh, tell me?” Ryan asks.

  
“Why should I?” Ray asks.

  
“It seems important,” he offers. That’s true at least. If most people can not see him, and can not see him like Ryan sees him, then there is most certainly a reason, right?

  
“Dude, even if I do, what makes you think you’d be able to comprehend it?” Ray points out. “The moon does not even speak a language nor do her deities. You know, me?”

  
“You’re speaking to me now,” Ryan insists, once again seeing a flaw in the words Ray says at him. In retrospect, perhaps arguing with Moonlight is not the ideal thing he wants to be doing. At this point, Ryan has to wonder exactly what he knows and doesn’t know about him. Does he kill or does he simply collect? Could he kill if he wanted to? Would he?

  
“That’s not how this works,” Ray assures. “Your mind is too small. _You_ are too small.”

“I’m open minded,” Ryan promises with a smile. Ray sighs.

“Whatever man. Answer a question for me and I’ll answer one for you,” he finally says, giving in. That is something Ryan can work with. He assumed Ray was all knowing but he supposes that is untrue to some degree.

  
“Sure,” Ryan agrees and he smiles a bit more.

  
“Do you feel guilty for killing Ray?”

  
Oh.

  
Ryan hesitates. He knows the answer, it is a simple one, but for some reason, he is concerned as to how it will be taken. Why should Moonlight even care? Does he care about mortals at all? More so, what does he have to gain from knowing the answer to this.

  
“No,” Ryan answers simply. “Someone wanted him dead and were willing to pay for it. It happens.”

  
“He was young,” Ray says. “Not even twenty five. He had his whole life ahead of him and you took that away for money.”

  
“And I would again,” Ryan replies. “What does it matter? People die all the time whether or not people kill them. It’s inevitable. He died young. His chances of the moon taking him were better, weren’t they?”

  
“Is that your question?” Ray asks.

  
“What? No,” he says quickly. “No.” If he had more than one question, perhaps he would ask. Or perhaps not. They say it’s an honor to be taken by the moon; it means you have lived your life well and done good. If not, though, your soul is recycled to the earth to try again as someone new. Is that really so bad?

  
“Ask your question, then. I got work to do,” he scoffs. Ryan has to be careful about what he asks and how as to get information he wants or at least that he needs. He really can't be sure when the last time he'll see Ray will be.

  
“What does ‘asteroids bring deliverance’ mean?” he finally asks. It's about as straightforward as he can get and it feels the most important at the moment even if Ryan has a thousand other questions. This earns him a solid few seconds of staring before any kind of reply comes.

  
“One asteroid,” Ray says. “It's the name for people and things that are around to aid the moon’s deities.” Then there is a reason Ryan can see him. He's supposed to be helping Ray? Ryan can assume Ray isn’t all that interested in his help, then.

  
“I'm- your pawn?” Ryan asks curiously. Ray doesn’t respond but he turns back to look at the dead man before arching a pointed brow at him. Ah, well, yes. Ryan sees how that works out. “What do I do now?”

  
“Hey man, our deal was one question,” Ray scoffs. Ryan doesn’t consider that a question but he supposes he has no room to argue logistics with Moonlight. “Stop killing people, okay dude?” He doesn’t wait for a reply, simply disappearing into thin air without warning. Absolutely not. Why would Ryan do that? He's just now getting to the interesting part. If killing is the only way he can see Ray, then he's going to have to do it a lot more- and a lot more deliberate.

  
\- x -

  
Ryan goes back to church. It's awkward. Ray sits three pews from the back and Ryan spends the entire time pretending not to notice him. He is wise enough to not try to interact with something only he can see in public. People already think he's a ‘wack job’. When the sermon is over, panic ensues as they discover a woman in the back row had an aneurysm part way through.

  
They call an ambulance but she's already gone. Ryan just watches as Ray reads her soul; an SD card.

  
‘What are you looking at?’ a strange lad asks curiously.

  
‘Just thinking,’ Ryan assures, exchanging looks with Ray. He has another cookie.


	3. It's A Sex Thing

What does Moonlight even like? Does he even eat? Ryan tries not to fret too much but he's trying to make a good impression- or at least a better impression that he already has. Awkwardly, he adjusts his table setting again to make sure it looks okay. He's heard Moonlight can be sated with roses and thus, Ryan has set up a little bouquet of them for Ray. He can show Ray he is a useful aid yet.

  
“I'm not really a rose girl,” Korta murmurs. Ryan glances back at her. Fortunately she's being nice and quiet unlike her loud accomplices. This is likely because she thinks someone is coming for her.

  
“They're not for you,” Ryan promises.

  
“Rude,” she replies. “Hey, you don’t have to kill me you know.” Everyone likes spaghetti, right? Except people who don't, he guesses. Perhaps he should make a backup meal? No, no, he just has to stop worrying so much about it.

  
“I can pay you so much more,” Korta insists. Ryan turns to look at her again, finally approaching her with his knife.

  
“I don’t care about the money,” he tells her.

  
“What do you care about?” she asks. “I can do it better, babe.”

  
“Killing,” Ryan answers. Korta swallows nervously. “I want to kill.”

  
“I have lots of people I want dead,” she promises. “We can work this out.”

  
“I'm going to kill you,” Ryan assures her. “It's too late for that. Don't think we can't still come to an agreement, though.”

  
“Really,” Korta says flatly. “Because I don't think we can if you intend on murdering me anyways.”

  
“You see Korta, the man who wants you dead wants you a lot more than that,” Ryan informs. “He wants you absolutely humiliated. I guess being outdone by a woman was really a knock to his ego.” Korta presses her teeth together hard. Ryan digs into his pocket to retrieve his phone, flipping through it a bit before showing her his job order. He gives her a moment to read it over before her face pales significantly.

  
“I'm not really interested in torturing you or any of that,” he promises, pocketing his phone again. “Honestly, I don’t like torturing women. It's a respect thing, you know? I respect what you've done and I don't think you deserve to be tortured.”

  
“Thanks,” she replies sarcastically between her teeth.

  
“I don’t care about the money, not anymore, but other people do. So here's my deal to you. You make sure my pockets end up lined and I'll make sure the guy that hired me to kill you _suffers_ ,” Ryan promises. Korta watches him closely, perhaps not taking his word on it. “I'm going to kill him anyways, it is simply up to you how much he suffers first.”

  
“You killed my fiance,” she says. “And his brother. This guy that hired you, he have a wife?”

  
“He does,” Ryan assures and he grins.

  
“He have in-laws?” she asks. Again, Ryan nods. Korta nods in agreement; so much spite in her blood. “You know where I live, do you?”

  
“Indeed,” Ryan agrees.

  
“Take my ring,” Korta tells him. Ryan glances down at her bound hands, watching her roll the gold band between her fingers. He slides it off delicately and examines it. There's a number on the inside. “That code will open my safe. You can have whatever you want in there if you kill his in-law, his wife, and him- gruesomely.”

  
“You have yourself a deal,” Ryan says with a pleasant grin. “It will be slow and it will be painful.” Korta smirks, only for a moment, before her face falls flat again.

  
“Then let's get this over with and kill me already,” she scoffs. That, Ryan can do. He sets his knife down to pick up his syringe, taking a moment to fill it before injecting her arm. She sneers at him irritably but accepts her face gracefully. More gracefully than her fiance at any rate.

  
“What did I tell you?” Ray asks mildly. Ryan turns to greet him with a smile.

  
“I didn’t kill her,” he assures. “I euthanized her. _Humane_.” Ray doesn’t look impressed. Ryan moves out of the way as he goes to work taking her soul for judgement; a DS game. He waits a moment, letting him work, and when he's finished, Ryan gestures to the meal he's laid out.

  
“What is this?” Ray asks, looking at Ryan suspiciously.

  
“Food?” Ryan offers. “You always look so busy I thought maybe we could-”

  
“Date,” Ray finishes before Ryan gets the chance.

  
“I was going to say eat,” Ryan murmurs. Again, he moves out of the way as Ryan walks past him and flops down into one of the chairs. Ryan hurriedly moves to sit in the other one, offering another pleased smile. Ray smiles back halfly. “Uh, you do eat, don’t you?”

  
“I can,” Ray assures. He looks at the food on the table before pulling a dish towards him. Ryan gladly offers him a helping before serving one to himself and fills both their glasses with sparkling cider. Unfortunately, he loses his appetite immediately. Ray's form distorts when he eats, the lad feeding his spaghetti into a shape on his face Ryan can not understand or comprehend. Ryan's not sure exactly what part of it kills his appetite but it does and he's alright with that.

  
“What's your fascination with me?” Ray asks between- bites? Ryan blinks, focusing on Ray as a whole again and not just the void, shapeless shape both near and no where near his face. “Most people don’t want to see me more than once.”

  
“I'll answer your questions if you answer mine,” Ryan offers. Ray smiles a little more sincerely.

  
“Whatever, man,” he agrees halfheartedly.

  
“You're interesting,” Ryan assures as he folds his hands together and rests himself on the edge of the table. “You're- otherwordly. As I said before, I was not a religious man before but now- how could I not be? Like anyone else, I want to know what my purpose is and right now, I think it has something to do with you.”

  
“You're schizophrenic,” Ray says. “How do you know I'm just just some hallucination?”

  
“So what if you were?” Ryan murmurs. “Is that not still a manner of which the moon would reach out to me?”

  
“Fair,” Ray agrees. He gulps down a bit of cider and the glass with it. Ryan pushes his glass towards the lad. “Ask your question, then.”

  
“Why do I see you like I do?” Ryan asks. “You said that was unusual.” Ray stops what he's doing to look at Ryan and when he does, his face more or less returns to normal. He puts his fork down and wipes his mouth.

  
“I have to ask another question before I answer that,” he says. Ryan nods in agreement. This back and forth, he doesn’t want it to have a price on it; it's just a conversation. “Do you know who you were?”

  
“Who I was?” Ryan repeats curiously. “You mean like past lives?”

  
“Yeah,” Ray confirms. Ryan shakes his head. “Do you want to?” The knee jerk reaction to that is ‘absolutely not’. His past lives are people who the moon wouldn't take, who were not righteous or pure or good enough to be taken upon her yet. There could be any number of reasons for that, he's sure, but he's also sure none of them were bad reasons. Who he is now, the moon would never take him just as she never took those before him.

  
“Kiss me,” Ray says. “And find out.” Ryan isn’t sure what to do. On one hand, it is an opportunity to kiss Ray. On the other, who knows what he'll see when he does? It's certainly something that Ray offered with that intention. It feels like a test to Ryan, as if Ray is making sure he is willing to truly understand himself before he can understand Ray. Ryan accepts.

  
When he leans across the table, Ray leans in to meet him. Admittedly, Ryan is nervous. He would say scared but he can’t be sure if that's because of what he might see or if that's just the effect of being so close to Moonlight. He barely feels their lips touch.

  
Ryan sees himself; a king in a time where schizophrenia has no name and the cure is hobbled together drugs that will sooner kill him than help him. The Mad King they call him and it makes Ryan cringe on the inside with shame and something else he can’t place. He holds the title with honor and his people, they fear him, they respect him, and they obey him.

  
He sees a lad; Ray. He loves Ray so much and he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know how to deal with these feelings. He invites Ray to his chambers and treats him to a night like he's never had; food, drink, luxury, and sex. All he wants is for Ray to be his, for Ray to _belong_ to him. He doesn’t understand. Ryan strangles him to death in a frustrated fit during the rising sun. He loves him so much.

  
Ryan pulls away, tears bubbling in his eyes and dripping down his cheeks. Ray looks at him but doesn't react. It's not that Ryan finds it sad, it's that he _is_ sad. He can feel, with no uncertainty, exactly what the Mad King felt; fear and panic and sadness. It takes him a moment to gather his senses again but Ryan leans in for another kiss.

  
Ryan sees himself; a perfectly normal guy in a perfectly normal house, perfectly well medicated. Still he kills. That's because killing isn’t in his head, it's in his blood. The papers and police have a name for him, the Vagabond they call him, how familiar. The serial killer they can never catch. His neighbors love him.

  
He sees a lad; Ray. He loves Ray so much and Ray loves him. They're married, happily, but what Ray doesn’t know what hurt him. Until it does. Ray walks into the wrong place at the wrong time and Ryan panics. He cuts Ray's throat before he can get a chance to even react. His fear of being rejected by the one he loves is stronger than his fear of losing him.

  
Carefully, Ryan pulls away again. It's worse this time, the sadness. Now it's riddled with regret and remorse like he's never felt before. He has to wipe some of the tears from his face with his hand. He loved Ray so much and the very thought that Ray would loathe him was too much. Shaken but determined, Ryan moves to kiss Ray again.

  
Ryan sees himself; a general in a war they could never win dosed with enough drugs to make him a rage filled, psychotic break waiting to happen. A war boy from birth, he doesn’t have any other traits than to fight and spill blood. People are terrified of him on both sides both for their own very good reasons. Ryan doesn’t understand what fear is.

  
He sees a lad; Ray. He loves Ray so much but he doesn't know what love even is. He grins as he executes Ray in a firing squad. The general’s lover, a spy for the other side, killed without batting an eyelash. Ryan thinks he's bested the enemy but his heart pulls in a way he'll never recognise as heartache.

  
This time, a small, sad hiccup escapes Ryan as he pulls back. Tears stain his face in streams and he has a hard time collecting himself. Never in his life has he been brought to tears like this and truthfully, he doesn’t like it. Every kiss feels a decade long, living his past lives day by day in an instant. He's known Ray so many times. Their lives are intertwined always to end in death.

  
“Do you feel guilty?” Ray asks softly against his face.

  
“Yes,” Ryan whispers back.

  
“Do you understand why you see me?” he asks.

  
“Yes,” Ryan answers again. He gradually sits back, using his napkin to pat his eyes dry again and try to recover from such an emotional experience. He's not sure what he should have expected but it was probably something like that. A shaky breath wracks his chest and he clears his throat before he tries to speak again.

  
“So why him? If all I do is kill him, why does the moon not take him?” Ryan asks.

  
“Why indeed,” Moonlight replies, wiping his mouth again as he eats the second glass of cider. “I don’t know, man. Maybe don't assume you're the only killer.” As he stands, Ryan watches him with puffy eyes.

  
“Thank you,” Ryan murmurs. “For entertaining me, I guess.”

  
“Thanks for the spaghetti,” Ray answers. “The world cannot give without taking, Ryan, nor take without giving. The equilibrium can not be broken.”

  
“My spaghetti was that good, huh?” Ryan jokes quietly. He's exhausted, physically and emotionally. He feels wiser. He feels older. Ray smiles at him a little.

  
“Have a good day, Ryan,” he says. Before Ryan can reply, Ray vanishes again, only leaving behind his half eaten plate of food and a lack of Ryan's nice glasses. A tremor rolls his chest when he sighs and he rests his head in his hands. He didn't know Ray very well this time around. He didn't know him at all, in fact, before Geoff hired him to be killed. Perhaps in different lives, it's Ray who killed him. He wonders if Ray would feel the same way.

  
Ryan sighs again as he looks at the body still waiting to be taken care of. He can do it later.

  
\- x -

  
A strange lad sits next to him in church. He smiles at Ryan and Ryan smiles back. They chat, about video games of all things. Then they listen to the sermon quietly. Afterward they make small talk over cookies. He points out Ryan isn’t wearing an amulet and offers his; he has more at home. Ryan sheepishly accepts and promises to pay him back later.

  
His strange new friend offers dinner instead. Ryan awkwardly explains he's already in a relationship and his new friend flusters hurriedly to correct himself. He assures it's fine. There was no way to know.

  
Ryan leaves the amulet at church where he can find it next week.


	4. Vagawrong

Ryan looks at his phone impatiently as he takes the elevator up to Geoff's apartment. He never understood living in a penthouse. They're so high. What a waste of time. When it finally stops, he gladly gets out and lets himself into Geoff's apartment. Geoff lets out a startled yelp.

“ _Moonshine_ , Ryan!” he snaps, holding his heart. “Don’t scare a guy like that! You know your face paint freaks me out.”

“Scaredy cat,” Ryan scoffs back. Geoff recollects himself again, giving Ryan a mildly annoyed look.

“I haven't seen you in a while,” he comments. “You still doing that Korta job?”

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “I'm almost done. Have to go clean up my employer and some loose ends. Here's your cut.” He tosses a bundle of cash at Geoff and the gent flutters his thumb across it with an impressed expression.

“Not bad,” Geoff murmurs. “But why’re you here if you're not done?”

“I needed to talk to someone about something,” Ryan admits begrudgingly. Geoff glances around as if to find this mysterious person before pointing at himself curiously. “Yes you Geoff.”

“Am I going to die?” he asks quietly. Ryan frowns at him a little. “I mean, look dude, it’s not every day you come wanting to ‘talk’ to me, now is it? I have a right to be suspicious!”

  
“I saw Moonlight,” Ryan says. Geoff doesn’t reply immediately, staring at him rather rudely for a moment before blinking.

“You mean like-?” he replies vaguely.

“Yeah,” Ryan murmurs. “After I killed a guy.” Again, Geoff goes quiet. He looks away this time. “Uh, and again when I killed someone else. And also the other day? He said I’m an ‘asteroid brings deliverance’.” Without a word, Geoff strokes his mustache and stares in what can only be akin to confusion at the ground. Perhaps this was a mistake. Finally, he looks back at Ryan.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks.

“I wasn’t about to tell anyone else I saw a literal embodiment of death, Geoff,” Ryan scoffs. “I don’t know, you seem- knowledgeable about a lot of things as much as it pains me to say it.”

  
“You need to talk to the Jones’,” he murmurs. Ryan has heard of them but he’s not entirely sure what they have to do with this. They have done quite a bit of work for Geoff in the past and even now if Ryan recalls correctly.

“This isn’t exactly something I want everyone to know about, Geoff,” Ryan assures him.

“I’m not a religious man, Ryan,” Geoff answers, a strange parallel to what he had told Ray. “But if anyone would make me question that, it would be them. Look buddy, I don’t know if you’re off your meds or if you’re blasted on that fucking coke again or- _whatever_ , but you need to talk to the Jones. Like, immediately.”

“I’m not sure this is going to help me,” Ryan says, rather annoyed that the one time he has actually come to ask for Geoff’s help, Geoff pawns him off on someone else. Geoff digs something out of his pocket, taking a pen to scribble on the back of it before getting up to hand it to Ryan.

“Go see the Jones,” he repeats. “I don’t have to believe in a higher power to know an omen when I see one. The fact that you are so sure you actually saw Moonlight enough that you came and told me about it, sounds like an omen if I ever heard one.”

“I feel offended and yet,” he murmurs. “You make an excellent point. I’ll pay them a visit.” Geoff gives him a hearty pat on the back.

“Now,” he says. “Now would be a good time.”

Though Ryan still isn’t sure what it is about the Jones that makes Geoff think they’ll be any help, Ryan trusts him enough to at least give it a chance. As far as he knows, the Jones are brutal attack dogs and little more. They bite who they’re told, steal what they’re told, and are happy to be loyal to Geoff as long as Geoff is loyal to them. Ryan may trust Geoff, with his life even, but loyal is not a word he would ever use to describe himself.

The address he is given leads him to a building very clearly owned by Geoff. Of course, that’s not saying much when Geoff owns a lot of buildings in Los Santos. The reason he and the Jones have never met before is due to the fact that they know how to stay off of each other’s toes. The garage is open and inside Ryan can see a guy working on his car so he lets himself in.

“Uh,” Ryan glances around a little, catching gazes with a blond lad perched on a toolbox a bit further back in the garage. “Are you- Michael Jones?” The one working under the hood of his car ignores him outright, not even attempting to show him even the slightest bit of attention. The other simply stares at him.

“Take your time,” he murmurs sarcastically. Still, the lad doesn’t even falter from his work, somehow managing to work angrily on his engine without even remotely looking in Ryan’s direction. Ryan makes an annoyed sound on his tongue before adding, “Geoff sent me.”

“Hand me that fucking half inch lug,” the lad demands, holding his hand out to finally acknowledge Ryan in _some_ way. Ryan glances at the pile of tools curiously for a moment before picking one up and putting it in his hand. It only takes him a moment to realise Ryan doesn’t fucking know what a lug is. “I said the half inch, moron. What are you-” As he turns to find himself face to- chest with Ryan, he lets out an annoyed sigh.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Ryan scoffs back.

“A warning would have been nice!” he shouts irritably.

“Next time I’ll wear a traffic cone,” Ryan says sarcastically.

“He’s deaf,” the blond says in a cheery tone. “I just wanted to see how long you’d do this for!” Ryan looks back down at Michael who stares at him sourly. It appears as though that’s just how his face looks. He takes a moment to wipe the grease off his face and hands before gesturing with his head for Ryan to follow him. Upon closer examination, the blond lad appears to be blind. He signs with his hands at the first.

“Geoff sent you?” the brunette lad murmurs. “Why?”

“So you are the Jones’?” Ryan asks.

“I’m Gavin!” the blond one announces. “This is Michael. Lindsay’s upstairs. Who are you again?”

“Ryan Haywood,” he introduces himself. Gavin signs it back for Michael who scoffs again, louder this time.

“Yeah, I couldn’t tell with the facepaint,” he assures sarcastically. That is a bit of a ‘vagabond’ give away. “What do you want?” Ryan rubs the back of his head awkwardly. It was bad enough trying to tell this to Geoff.

“Geoff told me to come see you after I told him I saw Moonlight,” he explains shortly. “Multiple times. And kissed him? Also multiple times.” Gavin looks stunned for a moment and Michael gives him a strange look before averting it to Ryan. Hurriedly, he translates spoken word to gestures for Michael who, in reply, also looks a little startled.

“You what?” Michael asks. “What did she say?”

“Asteroid brings deliverance? The equilibrium can not be broken? A lot of things, really,” Ryan assures and Gavin signs as he speaks. He looks awed but, again, that could just be his face. Michael rubs his chin thoughtfully. “Look, I don’t really know why Geoff sent me here.”

“Come with us,” Gavin instructs as he hops down from his toolbox. Michael nods in agreement, the two of them heading for the elevator and obviously expecting Ryan to follow. If this turns out to be some sort of poor attempt at an execution, someone’s going to be very sorry. Ryan stiffens his shoulder, his spine, and climbs into the elevator with them. They’re both small and attack dogs or not, Ryan is as ready for them as they likely are for him.

“I didn’t expect Geoff’s loyal attack dogs to be- blind and deaf,” Ryan murmurs.

“Why not?” Gavin replies curiously.

“Fair point,” he agrees. When the elevator opens back up, the two of them lead him back down the hall to what he assumes is their apartment.

“Lind-” Gavin beings.

“Lindsay!” Michael shouts over him. Sure enough, a supposed Lindsay appears. She glances over the two of them curiously and Gavin quickly signs to her. Is she deaf as well? They did call for her. She looks at Ryan curiously, apparently finding this information just as interesting and startling as they did. After a moment, she signs back. Michael nods.

“Alright Haywood,” he says somewhat forcibly. “We believe you.”

“Or at any rate, we believe that you believe you,” Gavin assures.

“We are oracle,” they say together and though she mouths the words, Lindsay doesn’t seem to speak. “We are asteroid.”

“Okay,” Ryan replies slowly. That was weird. He’s not sure what to take from this except that they, in some fashion, are like him.

“I looked upon the moon and lost my sight,” Gavin says.

“I listened to the moon and lost my hearing,” Michael says.

“Lindsay spoke to the moon and lost her voice,” Gavin continues. Lindsay smiles.

“We can help you see the moon’s will,” Michael assures. Lindsay signs something at him and Michael makes a small huff of a noise in reply. “Yeah, whatever. What you see won’t be of the moon herself, just like, I don’t know, a reveal of conscious on a level you can’t reach on your own? It’s hard to explain, dude.”

“It’s going to be like- seeing a colour you can’t comprehend,” Gavin explains.

“It’s going to be like speaking a language you’ve never heard,” Michael insists. Ryan isn’t sure how on board he actually is with all this stuff. He’s seen Moonlight, yes, but he can’t say he’s on board enough with the rest of this cultist theory. How far can his belief in this go?

“So you’re going to try to help me ‘open my mind?’” he asks pointedly. Lindsay signs this for Michael and they exchange bland looks.

“You don’t understand,” Gavin assures. “You’re too dense! You’re mind isn’t open enough!”

“We’ll show you your potential,” Michael states. “What you could be, what you will be, and what you were.” That sounds unlikely but if they really are the same as him, if the moon really did take from them in order to make them oracles, then maybe there is something to this. After all, Ray already showed him some of his past.

“Fine,” he scoffs. “If Geoff thinks you can help and _this_ is what you have to offer, I guess it’s worth a shot.” It’s not like he has anything else to try. Church certainly isn’t working. Perhaps, though, that is because he doesn’t know what he’s asking. He doesn’t even know what his problem is or what he’s trying to solve. Quite honestly, the only thing he does know if that he wants to continue seeing Ray.

In the end, what does he have to lose?

The three of them grin after a bit of communication between them. The three of them are married, obviously, though Ryan is a little curious as to how that works when at least two of them can’t communicate without the third. He decides that’s really none of his business, though. As Michael and Gavin move around to rustle with stuff, Lindsay gladly hops into his face. She doesn’t speak to him of course, but she pulls at his jacket until he takes it off and hangs it by the door for him. Then she urges him to take his facepaint off with a wet towel.

“Is that really necessary?” he asks pointedly. He doesn’t like taking his paint off on a normal basis let alone around people he’s just met. Lindsay nods insistently so Ryan just sighs and does as she wants. It’s not the end of the world he supposes. Still, it feels strange to be so bare in front of these people. With that done, she guides him towards the living room where the other two are setting up.

“Here,” Gavin says, offering him a little paper of white stuff. At least Ryan thinks it’s supposed to be directed at him.

“What is this?” Ryan replies flatly.

“Coke,” he smiles back.

“No, no, I’m- clean,” he insists. Gavin frowns a little. Lindsay signs at Michael who looks back at him with clear disbelief of this statement. Alright well now Ryan is questioning a bit of the legitimacy here. How does he know they’re not just junkies whacked off their faces thinking they’ve talked to the moon? He’s been in places like that before.

“You don’t take it, we can’t do this,” Michael states simply. Well good. He knows Geoff wouldn’t have sent him here if he knew this would happen but at the same time, he’s come this far, hasn’t he? It’s like what he said to Ray; is that not how the moon would show herself? Reluctantly, Ryan takes it and hurriedly snorts it before he changes his mind. Gavin and Lindsay smile at him.

“Alright! Let’s get started!” Gavin announces, settling himself on the floor with his legs crossed and holding out each hand. Michael and Lindsay join him in a circle formation, leaving a section between them very obviously for Ryan. Everything about this is weird and vaguely unsettling. Ryan gets down to join them, mimicking their sitting postures and putting his hands in Michael’s and Lindsay’s. It’s not the weirdest thing he’s done maybe?

“Close your eyes,” Michael says. “Focus.”

“You are safe. You are guided,” Gavin breathes out softly. “Listen to her.” Ryan’s not sure what he's supposed to be focusing on but he tries. He truly does want to listen to her. He focuses on his own breathing, then everyone else's, on the hands in his own, and the strange, sharp smell of the apartment. It's hard for him to relax, especially in a place he's never been before, but he does what he can.

Ryan's not sure if he falls asleep or passes out but he's almost certain he's lost consciousness. There is only black- no, there is only void. He isn’t sure what colour void is, but it isn't any sort of black Ryan's ever seen; a colour he can’t comprehend. Curiously, he looks around but there is nothing to indicate where he's looking and the motion disorientates him. He feels nauseous.

The only point of reference he gets as to where anything is, is the sudden appearance of a figure. Ryan lurches in a direction he can only describe as ‘away’. What _is_ that?

“I am the moon, Ryan,” she says. Didn't they say this is exactly what _wasn't_ going to happen? “I have taken a form familiar to you.” This is sort of true he supposes. Instead, she seems to be a single, swarming entity of various women he has known. She doesn’t look human, not really, but rather like multiple character models glitched into one another in a bizarre, haunting fashion. She's not familiar either, or at least not as a single unit, but he understands. Some stand out more than others. Mica Burton and Jack Pattillo and Lindsay Jones.

If her goal was to comfort him with familiarity, this certainly doesn't do it. He is more unsettled and anxious than ever. None of these are exactly women he finds comfort in.

“What is it you need?” she asks. Ryan needs a lot of things, but obviously that is not what she's asking. She offers answers but Ryan doesn’t even know the questions. He doesn’t speak.

“Very well,” she says. “Do you feel guilty?”

“W-what?” he replies slowly. Why? Why does that matter? Why do they care?

“Do you feel guilty?” she repeats, slower this time. Ryan is confused above all else.

“Yes,” he answers quietly.

“Why?” she asks.

“Why?” Ryan murmurs. He feels like that should be obvious.

“Why do you feel guilty?” she insists. Again, Ryan doesn’t feel as though she's asking what she sounds to be asking. He's not even sure she's speaking a language he understands; he simply knows. The answer, however, is a different story.

“I- I don’t know,” he admits.

“Why do you feel guilty‽” she's shouting at him now, her distorted form lurching but not moving. Ryan jolts back. “I am your goddess! I am the beacon of the damned and savior of the sinners! When you were abandoned, I took you upon myself! When you were forsaken, I delivered you into a new age!” Startled, he moves back but no matter how much he does, she gets no further away from him- and no closer, either.

“Why do you feel guilty!”

The void rips away like rapid decompression, yanking everything away from him in a disorienting way and leaving him in black again. He feels like he's going to be sick and he has no idea if he's awake or not. Hands touch him, several of them, and the world moves but he can’t see or hear or speak. It's discombobulating to not have his other senses and suddenly he's hyper focused on his sense of touch and his internal equilibrium and his own sense of balance.

Ryan clutches at whatever he can find, something warm and soft in both hands, and someone guides him to walk. Without being able to see where he's going or hear what's going on or even communicate that he's not feeling great, a sense of panic overtakes him. With what little he has, he goes catatonic. Easily something he hasn't done in years. Someone lays him down and then- nothing. There is only the dark, quiet inside of his own brain.

With nothing to do but think about things and mull over what the moon has told him, Ryan does just that. It's hard for him to tell when he's awake or asleep, his thoughts turning to daydreams turning to actual dreams with only a blurry understanding of each. He has no sense of time whatsoever. On top of that, he's being forced to trust who he can only assume are the Jones to take care of him.

Someone puts something in his hand at one point and with some fiddling, he realises it's a rubix cube. Ryan finds a little comfort in it clicking and rolling under his fingertips. Another time someone puts something in his mouth, soft and sweet; fruit. He fumbles around to find who's there and then what they're holding so he can feed himself. It's only minimally hard to find his mouth.

They help him walk around, letting him stretch his legs and ridding him of some of his pent up anxiousness from not being able to move. One of them guides him by allowing him to grab their waist; soft and plush, it must be Lindsay, her husbands are too wirey. Another grabs him by both hands to direct him around; occasionally bumping into things, it must be Gavin, the blind leading the blind. Which leaves Michael who simply lets him roam, only directing or grabbing him when he's about to bump into something.

Despite some disgruntled noises from Ryan, they help wash his face and hands. After a few days, one of them even shaves him. It's strange and Ryan doesn’t like someone he barely knows holding a razor so close to him but there's not much he can do. It is nice to have a clean face. He can tell they have a problem shaving around his scars, though.

Finally someone gets the wise idea to put a keyboard in his lap. Ryan gladly attunes himself to its shape, locating all the buttons he knows, before carefully typing away. He types it a few times just to make sure.

Thank you.

\- x -

Ryan doesn’t go to church.


	5. the witch and now the weather

“Hey! My hearing’s going again! I think he's coming to!” It's Michael’s voice he hears for the first time in what feels like weeks. Ryan bleary blinks as light touches his eyes, a blurry figure standing near by. It takes a moment for his eyes to readjust to seeing again and the suddenness of getting all his senses back at once is a little off putting. The silence is replaced with soft sounds that Ryan is hyper alert to in the small apartment. Michael is standing at the edge of the bed he's on, looking down at him as he gradually sits up.

  
“‘bout time,” he scoffs. Ryan holds his head tiredly. The bright lights of the room give him a headache.

  
“What- what happened?” he asks, rubbing his face between his hands.

  
“Something ripped you out of our meditation,” Gavin informs as he gladly pads into the room, Lindsay right on his heels. Ryan blinks, trying to adjust to having his eyesight back. “What did you see?”

  
“The moon,” Ryan murmurs. “I think.”

  
“Huh,” Gavin replies. “Cool.”

  
“She asked me why I felt guilty,” Ryan says. “Why?” Gavin shrugs animatedly with a small ‘unno’ sound.

  
“We don't fucking know,” Michael scoffs back. “We just help you see. Deciphering it is a job for someone else.”

  
“Well thanks,” Ryan says sarcastically as he grooms his fingers through his hair. He feels exhausted despite also feeling like he's slept the last week away.

  
“She's right, most people don't see the moon,” Michael murmurs, vaguely translating Lindsay's hand motion to spoken word. “What did she look like?”

  
“Every woman who’s ever meant anything to me all at once,” Ryan answers with a tired sigh.

  
“You really did see the moon,” Gavin says quietly. All three of them look both impressed and vaguely concerned. That probably has something to do with them insisting he wouldn't see the moon.

  
“Moonlight showed you some of your past lives, right?” Michael asks. “You should talk to Mica.” Lindsay nods in firm agreement.

  
“How did you know that?” Ryan answers curiously. He was pretty careful not to let people know that for more reasons than one. While he supposes confessing to kissing Ray might have tipped them off, he doubts it.

  
“Your soul is older than your body,” Gavin assures. “You're wiser than your age.”

  
“It's an obvious sign that you've relived who you were before,” Michael agrees. Lindsay signs at him a little but he scoffs quietly and signs back.

  
“The moon showed us ours,” Gavin chirps happily. “We are older than we look. Hundreds of lifetimes in seconds. That's why we are oracle.” Ryan couldn't imagine that. He was only given a few and while he can vividly remember details to lives not his, he can’t really remember if he relived those lives in full. To know all of them, though. The Jones are barely human anymore.

  
“Lindsay will set up a meeting with Mica Burton for you,” Michael informs as he moves to stand.

  
“Burton?” Ryan repeats. Lindsay looks at him curiously.

  
“You know her?” Gavin inquires.

  
“Sorta,” he admits. “If at all possible, I’d like to avoid her. We’ve had some- ‘disagreements’.”

  
“Disagreements like you being racist or- let’s be a little more specific here,” Michael snaps back.

  
“What? No,” Ryan replies quickly. “What? She and I have just stepped on each other’s toes a lot in the past. It happens.”

  
“Uh huh,” Michael murmurs with clear disbelief.

  
“Well,” Gavin says. “She’s the only witch I know of so suck it up.”

  
“Great,” Ryan sighs. This is obviously going to go over well. It takes Ryan a little while to get a grip on himself again and to be able to walk without assistance. All his senses feel like they’re not calibrated anymore and it’s very easy to feel completely out of sync the moment he stops paying attention. The Jones are kind enough to let him stay in their home another day while he readjusts to his senses and to the real world again. It’s interesting watching them live together.

  
Once he’s some resemblance of his old self again and once Ryan has had more time to ponder on his thoughts and visions, they head out. He doesn’t know what to think yet, he’s been getting too many mixed messages to be for sure of anything. Ray wants him to feel guilty for killing a lad he barely know and the moon doesn’t. His life is entangled with Ray’s and yet, never for very long. Always destined to love or at least that’s what Moonlight lead him to believe. At the same time, he’s supposed to be a tool for Moonlight, too, does that make he and Ray, the real one, just two functions of the same action? One of them rests while the other acts? More so if that’s the case, why does Moonlight not want his help this time? Did Ryan unwitting mess something up? Was Ray supposed to take the reigns this time?

  
Geoff and Jack meet them outside the building they’re supposed to be meeting Mica in.

  
“I thought you’d like someone to help you mediate,” Geoff assures, holding a camera. Jack rolls her eyes. Ryan isn’t sure what he’s expecting but surely Mica and he can put aside their differences to have a small talk for a minute. He doesn’t think anything that happened between them was that bad. As he heads inside, the rest of his new team follows suit.

  
It’s immediately apparent that Mica is indeed here but also that she is multitasking today. The building is absolutely littered with bodies of local rival gang members. Walls are splattered with blood, floors stained in pools, and no one’s left alive. She does good work. Ryan takes a guess and assumes she’s going to be on one of the top floors so he starts heading that way. Michael gives Gavin a quick rundown of what’s happening behind them.

  
“Do you see Moonlight here?” Jack asks curiously. Ryan looks at Ray and Ray looks back at him. The other Rays don’t pay him much mind, only offering minute glances as they past if that. Each of them tend to a different body, a few of them disappearing again once the job is done. There must be thousands of Ray at any given time. Moonlight is infinite and so is Ray.

  
“What a group of friends you have,” Ray comments, looking them over.

  
“Yeah,” Ryan replies as he continues to move forward.

  
“Three oracles,” he murmurs, examining the cluster of Jones moving together. “War,” he says, watching Geoff walk past him only to disappear behind him. “Famine,” he adds, examining Jack on the other side. “And a witch.” Ray glances towards the ceiling, a clear indicator that Mica is here and is, in fact, higher up.

  
“What’s she saying?” Geoff questions.

  
“All you’re missing is plague,” Ray comments.

  
“Nothing,” Ryan murmurs.

  
“She probably won’t talk to you with other people around,” Michael says. “Though what the hell do I know, I wouldn’t think she’d talk to you at all.”

  
“People used to think death and victory were the same,” Ray speaks as he walks with them a bit. “But I suppose people used to think a lot of things.” He vanishes and with him, all of him. Ryan glances around but it seems Ray has finished his job here and has already moved on. Sure enough, it doesn’t look like he’s much interested in sticking around if other people are around. It’s not the first time.

  
“He’s gone,” Ryan informs as they start climbing the stairs.

  
“Why is everyone I hire weird?” Geoff asks exhaustively.

  
“I ask myself that every day,” Jack assures. War, famine, plague, death; why does that sound familiar? Would that mean Geoff and Jack are asteroids, too? Or something more?

  
“Last time I saw Moonlight, he said the equilibrium can not be broken,” Ryan says.

  
“Oh!” Gavin replies. “The equilibrium is the idea that every time a person is born, someone has to die and vise verse, every time someone dies, a person has to be born. You see, people believe the earth used to be maintained by a different god and that this god abandoned us or died or was killed or something, different sources say different things, and that in its place, the moon took us onto herself! The moon wasn’t adept at doing what the last god did, though, specifically creating and destroying souls! To combat this, the moon must recycle souls which is why we are born again!”

  
“Whether the moon recycles us like reusing a glass or like melting a glass down to make something completely different depends on how we lived our life,” Michael adds in.

  
“Right! Even if individually we are not aware of it, humans have a very unique sense of divination! Having too many ‘restored’ souls on earth at once makes us very irritable and agitated, as we recognize each other even through lifetimes and not always in a good way. So once we have lived a good life, the moon takes the pieces of our soul and shreds them apart so that we, as a whole, can rest and she can make a new one of our parts!” Gavin is obviously more than happy to share all of this strange cult belief with their entire group. Perhaps Ryan shouldn’t have asked.

  
“Most of the time, anyways,” Gavin continues on still. “There is something called born again punishment where sometimes a person has lived their life so badly, no matter how well their next life is lived, the moon will not take them. This is believed to happen so that the moon can be sure she does not accidentally recreate whatever made this person so bad in the first place but no one knows for sure!”

  
“So to answer your original question, the equilibrium is basically just the idea that no one is born and no one dies without each other,” Jack assures, bringing the conversation back around again.

  
“Right!” Gavin agrees. “It’s not just that, though. The equilibrium affects all areas of life! You can’t receive without giving, if one person is healthy another must be sick, for you to be wealthy, someone must be poor.”

  
“The closer equilibrium is to fifty-fifty as a whole, the closer to utopia we are said to be,” Michael states.

  
“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” Gavin hums. “To break that would be- catastrophic.”

  
“Huh,” is all Ryan says. They take the elevator the rest of the way up. This is probably going to be bad. When the doors open, Mica is perched in front of the glass window that makes up one of the walls of this floor. She stops gouging the eye out of the head in her hands long enough to glance back at them. She remembers him.

  
“You,” Mica hisses irritably.

  
“Hello,” Ryan says awkwardly.

  
“You didn’t tell me it was the Vagabond,” she insists, looking to Lindsay.

  
“Lindsay thought it was a good idea to leave that part out,” Gavin assures. Lindsay nods agreeably. Ryan walks towards her gradually.

  
“Look, if we could just make up or whatever-” he begins. Mica jabs her knife into the desk top angrily and preps to jump over it. Ryan backs up. “Alright, wait-” She lunges at him without hesitation. Urgently, Ryan ducks out of the way, bolting in the opposite direction to avoid her.

  
“What’s happening?” Gavin asks quietly.

“Mica’s chasing Ryan around the room,” Jack informs.

  
“I just want to talk!” Ryan shouts.

  
“I didn’t know the Vagabond _could_ talk!” Mica barks back. “I thought he just did whatever he wanted and fuck everyone else!”

  
“Ryan’s running,” Jack murmurs.

  
“No hard feelings!” Ryan insists.

  
“I have hard feelings, Haywood!” Mica shouts.

  
“Ryan’s tripped,” Jack says. “Mica has him in a headlock.”

  
“I’m not going to tell you again, Haywood! Stop stealing my jobs!” Mica demands, pinning him to the floor on his chest.

  
“First come first serve!” Ryan shouts back.

  
“Now Ryan’s crying,” Jack murmurs. As untrue as that is, Ryan currently has more important things to deal with like the very upset, very small murderer on his back. He tries to shake her off and she punches him square in the face without warning.

  
“Stop!” Ryan barks. “Believe it or not, I have something serious to discuss with you!”

  
“Apologise!” Mica demands.

  
“No!” Ryan woofs back. She hits him in the face again, blood seeping from his nose now.

  
“Say ‘I’m sorry I wrongfully stole that Korta job from you, Mica’!” she insists.

  
“No!” he huffs again only to be struck again. “I got that job fair and square!”

  
“Eating Geoff’s cunt isn’t fair and square!” she shouts back.

  
“Alright, leave me out of this,” Geoff scoffs mildly.

“Ryan’s been seeing Moonlight, Mica,” Gavin informs. This is enough to get Mica to pause her assault, and her anger, to look back at him questioningly. She looks back down to Ryan who scowls back up at her through his own blood.

  
“I don’t believe you,” Mica says firmly.

  
“Get off of me,” Ryan snaps back. She does so but slowly and at her leisure, finally allowing him back up. He wipes some of the blood from his face, smearing his face paint in the process, and huffs disgruntledly.

  
“He had a vision of the moon, too,” Michael informs. “A real one as far as we can tell.” Mica looks him over again, suspicious and obviously not ready to believe this at all. That’s fair, really.

  
“What did she say?” Mica asks.

  
“‘Do you feel guilty’ and ‘why do you feel guilty’,” Ryan murmurs. She ponders on it a moment, touching her mouth with her bloody fingers as she does. After a few seconds, she looks back at him.

  
“Do you?” she asks.

  
“Sorta?” Ryan says with a sigh. “It’s complicated.” Mica goes back to thinking. She nods.

  
“Alright, I believe you,” she assures. He has no idea what changed her mind or why it even matters. Even now, he doesn’t know how they are helping him or if he even needs it. As long as he kills, he’s going to continue seeing Ray isn’t he?

  
“So now what?” Geoff asks curiously. “He sees Moonlight, he’s seen the moon, he’s a fucking mess. Where do we go from here?”

  
“Home,” Mica replies. “I don’t know about you but I’m taking a shower and going to bed. We’ll have to look into some of Ryan’s past lives for any clear answers and the best time to do that is generally not during the middle of the day.”

  
“I’m also guessing you don’t need us all for that,” Jack comments.

  
“Not really,” Mica agrees. “We’ll be sure to keep you informed if anything worthwhile comes up, though.”

  
“You broke my nose,” Ryan says mildly.

  
“Don’t be a bitch,” Mica answers.

  
“My face was already fucked up enough as it was, you know.”

  
\- x -

  
Ryan brings his new friend a new amulet. The little guy was worried when he didn’t show up to church last week and is pleased to see that Ryan is okay. He’s surprised when Ryan hands him a golden amulet of the moon and Ryan assures him that he’s actually quite well off. Selfless giving and all that. Ryan keeps the old amulet given to him and his new friend keeps the new one.

  
After service, Ryan asks if he would like to have that dinner. The lad asks about his girlfriend to which Ryan admits he doesn’t have one, he was simply not sure about meeting someone at church. His friend understands. They make dinner plans. 


	6. Personal Plague Physician

“Thanks for coming,” he grins happily. Ryan smiles back. “You never know _who_ you're going to meet in a city like this.”

  
“No kidding,” Ryan agrees as he stands to the side, watching his little date go about cooking a meal for the two of them. “You understand my hesitation.”

  
“Yeah!” Jeremy says. “You're such a big dude, I wouldn't think you'd be scared of anything.” Though he obviously means it jokingly, Ryan _isn’t_ afraid of anything. He is the monster Jeremy is worried about and he is the hunter other monsters dread. What does he have to be scared of?

  
“You never know,” Ryan replies, looking down into his glass. The expensive wine he brought over is gross, Ryan doesn’t like the taste of alcohol anyways, but he didn’t want to make Jeremy drink alone. That would be rude or something. Jeremy grins up at him again and again, Ryan smiles back. He's a very bubbly little guy, always seemingly happy to do anything and everything.

  
“Okay! Should be done in a while!” he announces as he washes his hands. “Why don’t we go sit ‘own for a bit?” He gestures Ryan back towards the living room so the two of them can relax on his couch again. Jeremy’s apartment is pretty nice all things considering. Ryan's not really sure what he does for work but he supposes it's not important.

  
“You really quite like the moon, don’t you?” Ryan comments as Jeremy pours himself another glass. If it wasn’t enough that they meet during sermon, Jeremy has a little shrine in his home and everything. Many people may worship the moon but this takes some dedication.

  
“Of course!” Jeremy answers. “Why wouldn't I?” Ryan nods thoughtfully. There are plenty of reasons people decide not to praise the moon but he's not really interested in a discussion about that. He's simply curious is all. Jeremy is an odd fellow. “Are you sure you don't want your amulet back?”

  
“I'm sure,” Ryan promises with a chuckle. While he takes his off when he's not in church, Jeremy wears his constantly. The shiny thing looks nice on him even if perhaps wearing something so nice around Los Santos isn’t the wisest of ideas. Besides, Ryan likes the one Jeremy have him better; worn and dingy and homey. Jeremy was nice enough to give it to him, Ryan's going to keep it.

  
“It just looks so expensive,” he murmurs as he looks down at it again. Ryan touches his chin gently, tilting the lad's face up to look at him.

  
“It's fine,” Ryan promises again as he leans in to kiss him. Jeremy makes a small, surprised ‘/haaap’ of a sound and Ryan pulls back again questioningly.

  
“Sorry! It's okay! You're just- really handsome is all,” he insists. Well that's a lie, Ryan knows his face looks bad from all the shrapnel wounds, but he supposes he appreciates the flattery.

  
“Relax,” Ryan urges with a chuckle. Jeremy nods affirmatively, puffing out his chest a bit to steady himself. Of course, it fades away again when Ryan kisses him more fully this time. He melts into it, letting Ryan dip him into the couch with ease. Though he's a small thing, he's built well. Ryan caresses his face gently, then his neck.

  
It takes Jeremy a moment to realise what's happening and in that time, Ryan has both hands around the lad's neck snuggly. He struggles, urgently trying to get Ryan off in whatever way he can but he's right; Ryan's a big guy. Even as he claws and hits his arms and shoulders, Ryan doesn’t loosen his grip. He only moves his face out of the way of his short reach when Jeremy tries to scratch his eyes.

  
“Shh. Relax,” Ryan says again as he digs his fingers in even harder, trying to break the threads holding him together. Finally Jeremy limps slowly but surely and his eyes fade with the last of his breath. When he stills completely, Ryan releases him. The imprints of his bare hands stand out against the lad's neck in all their glory. Ryan lets out a small breath, curbing his own excitement. It's been awhile since he's killed for the sake of his own pleasure. Rather pointless with a job like his.

  
As he brushes out his shirt, Ryan glances around. Ray doesn’t appear. Surely he's not-

  
Jeremy gasps for a breath of air, nearly startling Ryan when he so suddenly moves again. Oh for crying out loud. That should have at least smashed his windpipe. The lad grasps for his own throat and Ryan quickly unsheathes his knife from under his shirt. Somehow still perfectly coherent, Jeremy tries to scramble away. Ryan catches a handful of his colourful hair, jerking him back and swiftly embedding his blade in his throat.

  
“Just _die_ ,” he scoffs out irritably as he yanks his knife sideways and splatters blood across the coffee table. Again, Jeremy falls limp this time in a heap on the floor. Ryan pulls his shirt out a little, scoffing at the blood he's got on it now. This was supposed to be at least a little clean. He had dressed up nice to see Ray today. That's what he gets for not tying them down he supposes. He tries to dab some of it up before Ray shows, absently heading towards the kitchen.

  
Jeremy rasps out a loud, desperate noise. Ryan stops. He turns back just in time to see Jeremy grab the side of the coffee table to pull himself up. What the fuck.

  
“Oh,” Jeremy laughs, holding his open throat in his other hand. He grins at Ryan, blood staining his mouth and chest in rivers. “Okay, you're a good kisser. Wow.” What. Ryan glances around, expecting some sort of joke to be played on him but no one shows. Jeremy gets back to his feet with only minor stumbles and Ryan palms his blade wearily.

  
“I knew it,” Jeremy says and as he walks he tries to keep his blood in with his hand unsuccessfully. “You can see, too.” With the hand not occupied by his throat, he swings open the door to the coat closet and the gagged man inside squirms in fear. What the fuck.

  
“What's wrong with you?” Ryan asks, taking a little, awkward step to assure his back is nowhere near facing Jeremy.

  
“You can see Moonlight, right?” Jeremy insists. Ryan doesn’t reply. “Me too!” Of course he can, why would that _not_ be the case? No wonder he’s such a weird guy. Does Ryan seem that weird to other people? When Jeremy approaches him again, Ryan instinctively moves away from him less of fear and more of caution. He doesn’t know what Jeremy is and not being able to kill him is something that throws literally all of Ryan’s back up plans out the window. The little lad just grins up at him.

  
“It’s okay,” he assures though this does little to assure Ryan of anything. “I made a deal with Moonlight. As long as I keep the souls coming, I’ll never die.” That sounds less like a deal and more like a curse but alright. Ray probably has as good a reason to do that as any.

  
“Not that I’m afraid to die,” Jeremy continues, dragging his victim out by the ropes and happily carting him back towards the coffee table. Ryan is sure to stay clear out of the way for the time being. “Just too soon, you know? This way, I have complete control over when, and _where_ , I die! Whether I’m thirty or a hundred and thirty! Or more! I dunno!”

  
“How old are you now?” Ryan asks partially. Jeremy has to stop to think about it, halting everything he’s doing all at once.

  
“You know, I don’t know,” he replies curiously. “Twenty four? Twenty six? I’ve lived so many lives it’s hard to tell which of them were this one, you know?” Barely human, a recurring theme in Ryan’s life lately. Ryan simply watches as Jeremy takes the knife from under his own shirt, something he easily could have defended himself against Ryan with, and jabs it into his victim’s throat without hesitation or ceremony. There’s no reason to dress it up, Ray doesn’t care; there only needs to be death.

  
“An unstoppable force meets an unmovable object,” Ray murmurs behind them. “I expected more explosions.”

  
“Moonlight!” Jeremy greets pleasantly. He pads over quickly and Ryan jolts out of the way of the lad when he passes by. In a ritual that has obviously happened time and time again, Jeremy leans in and Ray gifts him with a kiss to which Jeremy immediately collapses onto the floor yet again. Ryan carefully slinks over, looking the lad over before looking back at Ray.

  
“Is he dead?” he asks curiously.

  
“What? No,” Ray scoffs. “He just does this.” Right, of course he does. “You know, when I said all you were missing was plague I didn’t mean go out and find him.” Ryan’s kneejerk reaction to this information is to hurriedly rub his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. He doesn’t know what ‘plague’ Ray is referring to but just in general that sounds not great.

  
“Relax,” Ray insists. “He doesn’t have anything you’ll catch.”

  
“I’m so relieved,” Ryan replies sarcastically. “What _does_ he have?”

  
“What doesn’t he have,” Ray answers. “Kid’s a festering mess of every disease known to man and patient zero of ones not even known yet. Passive, mostly, of course. Otherwise I think he would explode or something. Why do you think he was so willing to make a deal with me?” As interesting as that is, it’s not Ryan’s immediate concern.

  
“How does he see you?” Ryan asks. Ray shrugs somewhat violently.

  
“I dunno, dude. Why don’t you ask him?” he says back. Well, he hadn't exactly gotten the chance. Ryan glances down at Jeremy before looking back to Ray. He wonders if this is a different Ray than before, if there is, in concept, a ‘different’ Ray at all. Ray stares back.

  
“Why do you want me to feel guilty about killing you- or Ray, I mean,” Ryan asks. “I saw a vision of the moon. She seemed to be upset that I felt guilty.”

  
“I don’t want you to anything,” Ray replies. “I asked you a question and I gave you information. Whatever conclusion you came to from there is your own, dude.” Ryan doesn’t believe that. Regardless of what he says now, Ray certainly was trying to make him feel guilty before. Why is still another story. They both look at Jeremy again.

  
“Are you going to ask your question, then?” Ryan questions. That's how this works, right? They have to have a fair exchange or else- something bad, he's sure.

  
“What did the witch say?” Ray asks. He surely already knows.

  
“We have to look further into my past lives to really make sense of whatever I saw,” he answers.

  
“You trust her?” Ray inquires.

  
“I don’t know yet,” Ryan admits. “We've had our differences but Geoff trusts her. It's worth a shot.”

  
“What are you trying to figure out?” Ray asks.

  
“An answer to that question would be a good start,” Ryan murmurs. He feels empty, incomplete, and all he knows is that something drives him to need to see Moonlight again and again. He feels out of control for the first time in a long time; killing for no reason other than to see death itself for more reasons he can’t explain. He feels like his meds aren't working right; bad impulses. Jeremy gasps loudly as he jolts upright.

  
“My lasagna!” he yelps in a bizarre half Boston, half Mario accent. He jumps to his feet in a hurry and rushes into the kitchen to save his food. Mostly this is just odd because he wasn't making lasagna. Ryan turns back to Ray.

  
“He's plague,” he states. “Geoff's war, Jack's famine, you're death.”

  
“Fucking nailed it, buddy,” Ray replies, sarcastic in an unsarcastic tone. “You figured it out.”

  
“I know they sound familiar but I can't figure out why,” Ryan admits.

  
“It's an old world thing,” Ray explains. “The four horsemen that ushered in the end of the world. When the moon took over, she couldn't do anything about them; couldn't destroy them, couldn't banish them, whatever.”

  
“That sounds like a problem,” Ryan agrees quietly.

  
“So they resign in vessels on earth. Their personalities still manifest through lifetimes, Geoff the mob boss, Jack the devourer, Jeremy the- you know, he's just always been weird. We're not beings, we're concepts. You can't get rid of a concept even through time and language. You can hide war in peace, you can hide famine in feast, and plague in health. There's no hiding me. Everything will die one day, you know?” Ray murmurs. “Even me.”

  
“Sounds like a bad movie plot,” Ryan jokes. “Killing death.”

  
“There are five, though,” Ray says, shoving his hands in his ratty hoodie.

  
“Victory?” Ryan asks.

  
“Yeah,” Ray murmurs. “The final horseman. The end will come again, Ryan. Not any time soon, it's nothing you have to worry about, but it's there. Always looming in the distance.”

  
“Can I have another kiss?” Ryan asks.

  
“I don’t think so, man. I'm tired,” he replies. “Maybe next time.” Ryan nods. He wonders how Mica is going to show him his past lives and if they'll be a vivid as the ones Ray showed him. More so, he wonders how many he'll have to see before they can figure out why he sees Moonlight. Will he even be human anymore? Ryan glances towards the kitchen again as something clatters loudly.

  
“Moonlight, do you- oh. Aw,” Jeremy says in disappointment as he peers out of the kitchen. Ray has gone though, as quietly and undramatic as usual. Blood still rolls down Jeremy’s open wound, staining absolutely everything including the pan he holds. “Well, you're staying for dinner, right Ryan?” Blood boils against the hot pan.

  
“If we can eat something else, sure,” Ryan agrees. Jeremy frowns a little, obviously seeing nothing wrong with bleeding all over his own food. “How _do_ you see Moonlight, Jeremy?”

  
“Oh! Here, I'll draw a picture!” Jeremy assures cheerfully, never down for long.

  
Ryan wishes he'd never seen that picture.

  
\- x -

  
Ryan sits next to Jeremy during sermon again, his neck wound all but healed. They chat and have cookies afterward. Jeremy asks if they're going on another date. Ryan assures him they only went on the first date because Ryan wanted to murder him. Jeremy says that's okay, he didn't mind getting stabbed but this time, they can stab someone not him maybe. Ryan wishes he wouldn't say that so loud and in church of all places.

  
They plan another date.


	7. Blood Origami

Of course, Mica isn’t going to let Ryan anywhere near her actual home though it goes without saying, where she lives isn’t a secret to him. Likewise, sometimes he is surprised she has not gone out of her way to cover the inside of his house with threatening messages sometimes. Instead, he meets her in what he can only describe as a ‘nest’; a little nook somewhere she probably shouldn’t be but is left to her own devices anyways. It’s cramped, especially with his size, but cozy if he had to describe it.

  
Actually if he had to describe it, he’d say ‘lunar witch aesthetic’ which is fitting. Mica motions him to have a seat on a little cushion on the floor and she tiredly yawns as she sits on the other. It’s fairly early but they both have better things to do the rest of the day. Already she has several little things set up on the little table of which Ryan could probably name some of and probably be wrong about others. Sure, it’s a _little_ unsettling.

  
“You said you saw some of your past lives already, right?” she asks as she pops the tab off her drink. She doesn’t even seem to have gotten dressed yet today, lazing around in her pajamas with her bedhead and yesterday’s makeup. Ryan wishes he looked this good after any amount of sleep.

  
“A few,” he replies. “I couldn’t tell you about any of them, though. The longer ago it happened, the fuzier they get.” They’re life times he lived, decades all at once, he’s not surprised that there was quite literally no way he could handle it all. His brain is scattered enough as it is. Mica nods thoughtfully.

  
“Alright. That’s worthless,” she assures. Ryan’s glad to see they’ve put their ‘disagreements’ behind them. He watches as she stirs up a bowl already sat on the table before sliding it towards him with a knife. “I need some blood,” she explains. Of course she does, she’s not Ray after all. It wouldn’t be as simple as a kiss and a few tears. He takes the knife and carefully makes a little knick on the back of his hand to drip a few drops in. It changes colour rapidly from a dingy grey to a vibrant blue.

  
“Why do you need my blood might I ask?” Ryan grumbles. “I do tend to like to know what my blood is up to.”

  
“Oh, I didn’t specifically need _your_ blood,” Mica promises as she mixes it a little more. “I just assumed the Vagabond always kept some blood on him.”

  
“You handed me a knife,” he says flatly.

  
“Yeah,” she hums. The bright blue mixtures finally turns an eerie, stomach churning white. Ryan hopes he won’t have to eat that. “Once we begin, you’re going to be in a ‘hypnotic’ state,” Mica begins to explain as she sets a wick in the substance and watches it sink to the bottom. “It should last, outwardly, about thirty minutes granted you’re not ripped out of it by whatever happened to you last time.”

  
“Oh good,” Ryan replies sarcastically. He still doesn’t know _what_ happened last time.

  
“Inwardly, it’ll last as long as the life you’re witnessing does,” she says.

“Even better,” he murmurs. An entire lifetime that doesn’t belong to him, witnessed in a brief moment; it still makes Ryan uneasy.

“Are you ready?” Mica asks.

  
“I’m ready,” Ryan assures.

  
“I don’t think you understand the severity of this situation,” comes the annoyed reply. “If we do this, people will _die_.”

  
“People die every day,” Ryan answers without hesitation.

  
“Not at the rate that they will if we go to _war_ , Haywood,” Jack insists, shaking her head irritably.

  
“He makes a good point, Jack,” Geoff argues from his other side. “People are dying now and they will die in the future just the same. Going to war isn’t going to change that but if we succeed, we’ll be saving many more lives in the future.”

  
“We won’t _have_ a future if we don’t win,” Jack scoffs back. The two of them walk about a pace behind him to either side, bickering more between each other than with Ryan. While he listens, of course, and he takes their opinions into consideration, his mind is already made up about this. This situation has escalated too far to not end in bloodshed, he has been peaceful for long enough.

  
“And who’s to say our side will die, anyways,” Geoff murmurs. “We are far more prepared and far more better equipped for this than they are. This is their mistake, not ours.”

  
“It doesn’t matter how well our _army_ is prepared,” Jack assures. “Our citizens will still be caught in the crossfire.”

“It’s called a ‘militia’ for a reason,” Geoff replies. Jack gives him a sour look. In their walk, however, Ryan has become distracted with something else- or more specifically, someone else. He enjoys taking walks through his city, to see the people and things and get some fresh our outside his lovely castle, so he likes to think he knows almost everyone in town. It makes them worry. Ryan isn’t sure if it’s the fact that he doesn’t know this person that gets his attention, or the fact that he is so badly injured.

  
“Who is that?” Ryan questions. Geoff and Jack both turn in the direction he’s looking, the three of them pausing for a moment to watch the one armed, one eyed lad go about his business sharpening someone’s sword for a few gold pieces. They look at each other again.

  
“That is Ray Narvaez Jr,” Jack informs. The name rings in his head and Ryan’s insides twist. “He moved here on- permanent medical leave.”

  
“I can see that,” Ryan assures. They continue on their way.

  
“More people are going to end up like that if you go through with this,” Jack comments.

  
“Lovely,” Ryan replies. “A beautiful specimen.” Jack sighs as Geoff smirks at her and her failure to guilt him out of his decision. As they reach the little shop, Geoff moves to open the door and Ryan trudges in just as everyone else hurriedly flocks out. People know better than to occupy the same space as him without permission. Once everyone has cleared out, a guard closes the door behind them and takes his stance. Mica looks at him from over the counter, as unamused as she typically is with him.

  
“Back again already?” she asks.

  
“Not exactly a lot of other merchants with your merchandise,” Ryan answers with a smile. The way she looks at him says more than her mouth could. He knows this stuff won’t cure him, no matter how much he throws back, but what else is he supposed to? Succumb to the rotting in his brain? Follow the footsteps of the family before him and go quietly into the night? Absolutely not. Mica doesn’t say anything in the end, simply moving into the back room to fetch another bottle of his daily cure.

  
When she sets the crate on the counter for him, Geoff takes it and places down the required gold to pay for it in return which Mica brushes off the counter into her bag. Not many places around here get away without paying tax. In fact, only she does without severe repercussions. After all, if something happens to her it’s likely the kingdom would very quickly begin its descent back into ruin.

  
“Thank you,” Ryan says with a small nod of the head.

  
“Of course,” Mica replies politely.

  
“Have the oracles said anything recently?” he inquires.

  
“They have,” she answers. “And about you no less.” She places the oracles’ gold jar on the counter, a quiet assurance that it’ll cost if he wants to know. Geoff grumbles a little as he digs into his coin pouch to pay her appropriately.

  
“They see victory for you,” Mica relays. Ryan smiles a little. “Though they warn, if you continue to worship yourself at this rate, it will not come without its price.”

“And who do they suggest I worship instead?” he asks. “The host?”

  
“If the host is still alive, sure,” Mica agrees. Still alive? “They didn’t specify that part.”

  
“Who do you worship, then?” Ryan asks. Her look rarely grows any warmer but it reads like a book.

  
“You, of course, my liege,” she assures in a manner that they both know is an outright lie. “As for the oracles, I believe they remain undecided. The moon has been speaking to people lately. Curious.” The oracles are different, Ryan wouldn’t dare try to tell them anything mostly because the only person to ever speak to them without some sort of drastic injury to personal being is, well, Mica. Sure, Ryan can not prove that his last advisor died in a horrible meteor accident because he spoke to the oracles but he’s not going to take that chance.

  
“The moon?” Jack repeats. Mica nods.

  
“Oh yes. It seems she has been instructing people lately on what will be to come and how they should handle it,” she explains. “All very dreary stuff. Nothing that you should concern yourself with needlessly, don’t worry. She isn’t instructing them to betray you. In fact, quite the opposite. It seems she wants most people to obey your lead. I suppose that aligns with the ‘victory’ thing.” That is reassuring in a sort of way that Ryan didn’t wish it was. The way she says it is so nonchalant but the fact is, no ‘deity’ has spoken to his people like this before.

“Has the moon spoke to you?” Ryan asks.

  
“She has,” Mica agrees.

  
“What did she tell you?” he pushes. She holds her hand out. Ryan gestures for Geoff to give her a gold coin which he does with another annoyed little huff.

  
“She instructed me to kill myself for unspecified reasons,” Mica informs as she pockets her money.

  
“Oh my,” Jack murmurs in surprised.

  
“As my duty is to the oracles first and foremost, I won’t be doing that anytime soon,” she assures. Or at any rate, as long as they’re still alive. Ryan nods thoughtfully.

  
“Anything else?” he asks. Mica taps the oracles jar again.

  
“This future shit is getting real expensive,” Geoff finally scoffs as he pays her more money for her spoken word.

  
“It is expensive taking care of three oracles in this economy,” Mica assures. Ryan isn’t sure if this is a bite at his policies or her oracles or possibly both. “It wasn’t specified if it was towards you but it followed the same vein. They say in the land of the blind, the one eyed is king. There will be war, there will be famine, there will be plague, then there will be death. The king will rise a new, born from the embers of the fallen and in his imagine will be painted victory.” ‘One eyed’. Ryan’s mind immediately jolts back to Narvaez. It surely isn’t a coincidence that he just so happened to first spot the lad today and then hear this news. What that means is still yet to be seen.

  
“Thank the oracles for me,” Ryan murmurs. Mica nods at him.

  
“I think we’ve already thanked them in their weight in gold,” Geoff grumbles.

  
“One last thing before I go,” Ryan says and Mica simply looks at him the same as she ever has. “I have heard that you’ve been shown past lives.”

  
“Now who would have spoken that,” she replies sarcastically. “Little birdie sounds like a lovely dinner tonight.”

  
“You were a queen once, no?” he asks. She makes no reply to agree or refute this statement. “If you were a queen in my position, how would you handle things?” Mica adjusts to lean on her counter a bit more, to lean into him a bit more.

  
“Between you and I, my liege,” she says. “With my crown high and my weak men in the front.” Ryan laughs.

  
“What a wonderful queen you’d make,” he insists. The way she smiles says she’d cut his throat when given the opportunity.

  
“Thank you, my liege,” Mica answers. Geoff takes his medication and as they leave, people slowly refill back into the shop behind them. That was a very informative reading. The oracles never give much and never very specifically, so this is a nice change. As far as Ryan knows, it’s not the future they see but the path of the ‘gods’. It could change but by knowing it, it won’t. His victory in this war is assured, even if it will be bloody.

  
“Do you think she would?” Jack asks once they are well enough away. Even then, she keeps her voice down.

“Kill herself?” Geoff replies. “Because the _moon_ of all things told her to? I don’t know, dude. Witches are on a completely different moral plane.”

  
“Invite Narvaez to the castle for dinner,” Ryan instructs. Both his assistances jolt to a stop, exchanging quick looks before moving to catch up

  
“Do you think that is a good idea?” Jack insists. “I mean no ill about Narvaez, but he is a war veteran. He may not agree with what you’re doing.”

  
“Fuck that, he’s a _mercenary_ not a solider. He’d kill you for a handful of silver,” Geoff urges. “And you want to let him into the castle?”

“I don’t believe I _asked_ what you thought,” Ryan snarls back and they quickly flinch back. Sometimes they get comfortable. Sometimes they forget their place. “I _told_ you to invite Narvaez to _my_ castle.”

  
“Yes, my liege,” Jack says quietly.

  
“Of course, my liege,” Geoff murmurs quickly.

  
“Make sure the kitchen makes something nice, too. I want to make a good impression,” he says. They each nod. Ryan returns to his castle to prepare for his date. Only a fool would say no to an invite to the castle and sure enough, Narvaez proves himself no fool. For some reason, the lad makes him anxious in a way he doesn’t think he minds so much. Of course, Jack and Geoff sit in on dinner as well for more reasons than one. Narvaez may look harmless enough but the fact remains he is well equipped with a sword.

  
Above all else, Narvaez looks awed at the castle. He spends several minutes just sort of looking around after having a seat and taking in the sight of the grand dining room. People like Ray will always be entertained by such simple things.

  
“Have you ever been in the castle before?” Ryan speaks up, catching the lad’s attention again. Narvaez looks back at him for a moment, gives another look around, then tries to settle in so he doesn’t appear rude. It’s certainly not rude; amusing if nothing else.

  
“Once,” Narvaez answers and he straightens his shirt out to the extent that he can. He’s done his best to look nice but it seems the nicest thing he owns is his plain merc gear. “You put out a call for fighters to handle some wolves and I showed up.”

  
“Ah yeah,” Ryan hums back, folding his hands together and smiling. “I remember that. I appreciate your service to this kingdom.” He doesn’t look particularly appreciated. “How come you never officially joined the army, may I ask?”

“They wouldn’t let me,” Narvaez murmurs back. Ryan raises a curious brow. “I had ‘undesirable’ affiliations.”

“Do you?” he asks.

  
“If my parents being immigrants from the country we’re about to go to war with counts, then yeah, I guess so,” he says. Ah, that would definitely do it.

  
“I thought you seemed awfully dark for a Haywood,” Ryan comments idly. Jack leans into him suddenly as Narvaez gives him a cold look.

  
“Ryan,” she says quietly. “Statements like that are considered rude and even offensive among the common population. He _is_ a Haywood regardless of the status his parents used to be.”

  
“Ah,” Ryan hums curiously. “I’m sorry, Narvaez. That was- inappropriate of me.” Narvaez gives him an odd look before glancing at Jack questioningly. Perhaps he expected less of a ‘mad’ king. Manners and madness are not mutually exclusive.

  
“Don’t worry about it, man,” he assures. “They call me Brownman for a reason.” The way his says it is flat and unamused but unlike Mica who is simply constantly fed up with him, Narvaez just seems to be a nervous fellow. It’s clear he’s out of his element and he doesn’t quite care for it. The chefs carry out platter after platter of food which immediately makes Narvaez far more comfortable than before. If he’s _ever_ had a good meal like this, it was probably years ago.

  
“By all means, please help yourself,” Ryan encourages. Narvaez only hesitates a moment before beginning to reach for some food. Ryan follows his lead and only after the two of them had finished do Geoff and Jack help themselves as well. Sure enough, Narvaez relishes in the taste of such fine luxury. A chef fills their glasses with wine, another with sweet cider, and a last with milk to go with their meal. Narvaez avoids the wine.

  
“If it’s not rude,” he murmurs. “Why did you invite me here?”

  
“To thank your for your services,” Ryan assures. Narvaez gives him a look of disbelief and Ryan laughs. “Not buying that?”

  
“Did you even know who I was before now?” he asks.

“Very well,” he replies. “I invited you to my castle first and foremost because I find you attractive. Supremely so.” Narvaez flushes a dark shade of pink but he hurriedly reaches for his cider to cover this. “However, I will admit that I received some news from the oracles that was certainly not coincidental to meeting you today.”

  
“Yeah, well,” Narvaez says with a small cough as he tries to cool his face. “I hope they had something better to say to you than me.” As it’s generally not polite to discuss what the oracles have said, Ryan just smiles between bites of food.

  
“So then, how did you procure such serious injuries?” Ryan asks curiously. Again, Jack leans into him.

  
“Not offensive but rude and generally frowned upon,” she assures him quietly. “It could be potentially painful to recollect or personal.”

  
“It’s fine,” Narvaez speaks up. Jack nods her head before returning to her meal. “I was doing a job for one of your officers. With so many soldiers going off to prepare for war and whatever, city defense is lacking. A lot of mercs are getting jobs doing tedious town stuff. I got ambushed walking a patrol. Let’s just say they don’t take nicely to ‘traitors’.”

  
“Ah, well I’m sorry to hear that,” Ryan says. “If it’s any condolences, you’re quite lovely now.” The way Narvaez scoffs says it’s not but he takes it anyways.

  
“Thanks,” he murmurs. Perhaps he just doesn’t believe him. As they finish their meal, the chefs collect the remaining platters to feed the rest of the staff and in return leave a light dessert. Narvaez approaches these curiously but openly. While sweets aren't rare in his kingdom, most people don’t partake in them often. Plus, if Narvaez is more accustom to his family from across the border, they’re likely _too_ sweet for him.

  
“If you’re sated, perhaps we could retire to my chambers?” Ryan suggests with a soft smile. Narvaez swallows nervously. He just shrugs, though, nodding his agreement.

  
“Sure,” he murmurs. He’s certainly not obligated so Ryan is glad he’s made such a nice impression on the lad.

  
“We’ll be off to our chambers then, my liege,” Jack informs as she and Geoff get up. They each bow to him before departing for the night. Narvaez watches them go mildly and Ryan waits a moment to see if he’s going to try anything now that they’re alone. He doesn’t, of course, he’s not a fool. Ryan offers his hand to the lad and Narvaez takes it after a moment.

  
“I didn’t know they were detachable,” Narvaez says jokingly. Ryan chuckles as he leads them to his room.

  
“They are my best. There aren't many places you'd go without your sword, are there?” he points out.

  
“I guess,” Narvaez agrees. It's clear he doesn’t have his sword now, likely attributing to some of his nervousness. Ryan gestures him into the bedroom and Narvaez is immediately taken with the sight from the window. They're quite high up. From here, Ryan can see the entire city. He removes his heavy decorative coat and boots while Narvaez has a look.

  
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ryan murmurs, gently placing a hand on Narvaez’s waist.

  
“Yeah,” Narvaez says back. Ryan kisses him softly and the lad jolts a bit before relaxing. He clings to Ryan's shirt for stability with his hand and Ryan sweeps him back further. Even through his shirt, Ryan can feel the ridges of scars all across his back in a beautiful pattern. Carefully, he lays Narvaez down on his plush bed before breaking their kiss. Despite the minute contact, Narvaez is hot in the face and panting.

  
Ryan grins as he leans over the lad, fondly kissing his jaw and neck. Narvaez swallows hard. When he tries to lift the edge of his shirt, however, Narvaez pushes his hand away. Ryan pauses a moment, kisses him harder, then tries again. Still, Narvaez is insistant. Annoyance bubbles in Ryan.

  
“Dear,” he says softly. “What's wrong?”

  
“Look, I'm not what you're expecting,” Narvaez assures. He doesn’t look armed and they've been pressed together close enough that Ryan thinks he'd be able to tell if he was.

  
“Who's to say what I'm expecting?” Ryan replies somewhat sharply.

  
“I'm not what anyone's expecting,” Narvaez insists.

  
“Have I not already made it clear I'm fond of your scars?” Ryan asks, carefully caressing his face and swiping his thumb over a knot on his cheek. “You needn't hide from me.” Narvaez doesn’t reply but he still seems unsure of the situation. Ryan moves back a bit to push his own shirt off in hopes of settling some of the lad's nerves. Narvaez looks surprised at first and Ryan traces one of his own scars with a finger.

  
“Not as many as you, I imagine,” Ryan murmurs. “But plenty, no?”

  
“You're- female,” Narvaez says, not even taking a second look at his scars.

  
“Hm? Of course,” Ryan agrees. He knows it is not that obvious sometimes but he doesn’t see what difference it makes. It holds no effect on his title of King. Narvaez lets out a small snort of a laugh and then a louder, bubblier one as he covers his face with his hand. It's the first time tonight he actually sounds like he's happy. Ryan's look sours.

  
“Is this funny to you?” he asks sharply. Narvaez shakes his head. Instead, he reaches out and Ryan huffs mutely as he leans back in to kiss him again. This time, Narvaez doesn’t stop him from lifting up his shirt and tossing it aside. He seems more comfortable now. If he thinks Ryan is less threatening because he can birth a child, he's going to be in a world of hurt.

  
The bandages that wrap his chest aren't bloody at all, even at the uneven crook of his missing arm, so Ryan pulls them off. It's clear immediately they weren't injury bandages. Narvaez makes a quiet huff when Ryan stares at his soft, scarred tits too long. Ah, that makes more sense. Ryan laughs too and Narvaez smiles back at him.

  
“Is there anything else you'd like me to know?” Ryan asks teasingly, gently running his hand over Narvaez’s collar and squeezing his breast.

  
“I think we're good, man,” he assures and he arches into Ryan's touch. “Can’t wait to see the king’s treatment.” Ryan grins at him, leaning back down to take his lips again. Narvaez is certainly not used to being attended to so affectionately if the way he moves under Ryan's touch is any indication. It's so easy to get him to gasp and pant and moan with just the right touches. Deep scars stretch the expanse of his body, a beautiful tribute to the work he's done, and Ryan is eager to touch them all. Over the course of the night, he does.

  
Ryan uses his tongue on every part of Narvaez that makes him tremble, treating him to orgasm after orgasm with nothing more than his fingers and mouth. The lad proves to have quite the stamina but even when he's worn out, he easily finds the energy to eat like a king. Ryan would be the first to admit inviting someone to his chambers like this is a rare treat and this is one he think he'll partake in more often.

  
Once they're both exhausted and sated, they settle into his warm, soft sheets together. Ryan kisses Narvaez along his throat warmly, the lad so perfectly fitted into him. He could see them being kings together, after the war perhaps. King Ray Narvaez Jr has a nice sound to it, doesn’t it. Ryan coasts his hand down Ray's side and caresses his belly.

  
“You’d sire such beautiful children,” Ryan hums against his face. Narvaez laughs tiredly.

  
“I did,” he assures. The comment is so nonchalant and yet, Ryan's heart twists. “Hey man, thank you for this. I know you like, probably have people in and out of here all the time but- yeah. It was nice.”

  
“Of course,” Ryan murmurs distractedly. “You were- lovely.” Narvaez smiles a little and he comfortably nuzzles himself against Ryan in the dark. He's asleep in a few moments, a soft snore escaping him now and again, but Ryan finds it hard to sleep. He has children already. Someone else has touched Narvaez before him; had seen his beauty before him. They had a child together, several perhaps. The more Ryan dwells on it, the angrier he gets. Angry that someone else has already known him like this, angry that Ryan can not give him a child of their own, angry that he didn't know Narvaez sooner.

  
Then the sun is rising. It's been a long night only punctuated by the stress dream Ryan had when he momentarily dozed off. Savage enemy troops and angry citizens ravaging his castle. Despicable. As Ryan gets out of bed, Narvaez stirs awake. Neither of them say anything, Narvaez gazing out the window at the sunrise while Ryan pulls on his bed robe. He clears his throat.

  
“Your child,” he says softly. “Boy or girl?”

  
“Girl,” Narvaez replies after a moment. He ruffles his hair. “For now.” Ryan nods thoughtfully, keeping his back to the lad. Narvaez has a little girl.

  
“What's her name?” he asks.

  
“Percival,” Narvaez answers. Not a traditionally Haywood name.

  
“Where is she?” Ryan asks. Narvaez is uneasy now.

  
“Does it matter?” he insists. Ryan turns to him for but a moment. If they can not have a child of their own, then it only makes sense to procure little Percival in place of that or barring that, get rid of her. He will have to see how things play out.

  
“It does,” he assures. “Very much.” Narvaez hesitates a moment, obvious torn because his suspicion and what would happen if he refused to answer.

  
“With her father,” he says. Ah, two birds with one stone.

  
“Where?” Ryan asks again. Narvaez is now visibly unnerved.

  
“What does it matter?” he asks again. Ryan turns to the bed fully now, approaching him calmly and easily.

  
“Please,” he says. “Tell me where they are.” Narvaez doesn’t reply. No, he's no fool. He moves further back on the bed when Ryan gets closer. “Ray, where is Percival and her father.” He doesn’t even bat an eyelash when Ryan reaches for him suddenly, grabbing his petite throat in his hand and shaking him.

  
“Where are they, Ray!” he demands again. Narvaez turns away from him, a look of sorrow and disgust on his face. Disgust with Ryan, with his approach, with his rule. A pathetic little mercenary from a pathetic little kingdom disgusted with _his_ rule. They could have been happy. They could have been in love.

  
“Oh,” Jack says sadly. “Ryan.” Ryan jolts, turning to her harshly before looking back again. Both of his hands are wrapped firmly around Narvaez’s neck, clamped down so hard his windpipe crumpled like paper.

  
“Buddy,” Geoff murmurs. Ryan releases him slowly, his hands trembling. He didn't- he just wanted to be happy.

  
“What are you looking at?” Ryan barks at them. Hurriedly, both Jack and Geoff avert their gazes and lower their heads. He tries to control his breathing, his shaking, and steadies himself again. “Clean this up,” he instructs.

  
“Yes, my liege,” Geoff nods.

  
“Right away, my liege,” Jack agrees. “Will you be alright?”

  
“I'm fine,” Ryan barks. She tries to touch him and he swats her away hard. “Don’t touch me!”

  
“Alright, jeez,” Mica scoffs back. “Relax. You got yanked out of there pretty hard.” Ryan glances up at her, his vision blurry and distorted. He can tell it's Mica but she doesn’t look right. She looks like a strange merge of this Mica and the one with a throat cutting smile. When he blinks, trying to fix himself, he sways. The blurriness of his sight seems to be due to the rivers of tears and he tries to wipe them away.

  
“Sorry,” Ryan rasps out, trying to clear his voice. His head _hurts_ , two different life times trying to mash together. It's disorientating knowing who he is, what he is, but still wanting to be someone else. He knows he is Ryan Haywood, the Vagabond of Los Santos, but he also knows he is James Ryan Haywood the fifth, rightful King of Aćhieve.

  
He knows he loves Ray.

  
“It's alright,” Mica assures. “How are you doing?”

  
“I think I'm okay now,” Ryan murmurs, holding his head in his hands.

  
“Well, you didn't live the life in full for some reason,” she explains. “What happened?”

  
“I don’t know,” he replies, exhausted. “I- I killed someone important to me and then nothing.”

  
“Huh,” Mica muses curiously. “Usually the only way to break out of a past life is to die. This version of you lived on long past the war, though. Who did you kill?”

  
“Ray. His name is Ray,” Ryan says. “He's how I see Moonlight.” Mica hums softly as she thinks and Ryan tries to push his hair back into place before fixing his reddened eyes.

  
“Well, we won't know until we try again,” Mica finally says.

  
“I don’t remember the past lives I was shown before very well,” Ryan repeats. “But this just made me remember, I don’t think I lived any of those in full, either. They all end after I kill Ray.”

  
“Sounds like your consciousness is connected to his somehow,” she murmurs. “That only happens in theoretical situations though so I don’t fucking know what that even means. At any rate, just give me a heads up once you’ve calmed your tits and we can look at another of your lives.” Ryan sighs tiredly, rubbing his eyes in his hands.

  
“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “Alright.”

  
He can still feel Ray’s throat crumple in his hands.

  
\- x -

  
Jeremy points out that he doesn’t look so good. Ryan assures he’s not feeling too good. He almost passes out during service and Jeremy asks if he needs help home. No, he promises, he’ll be fine. He ends up passing out anyways and wakes up in Jeremy’s apartment again, the little lad fretting over him worriedly.

  
Ryan needs to get back to work.


	8. Unrelatively Related

Ryan twiddles his knife between his hands as he paces, running his fingers along the sharp edge slowly but surely.

  
“You shouldn’t do this,” the man says. Ryan pauses in his pacing, looks at him, looks at her, then continues his walk. The man squirms against his binds again, fruitlessly trying to free himself but not getting far.

  
“It’s a waste to kill both of you,” Ryan murmurs. Ray isn’t going to show up twice. He didn’t exactly expect them both to be here, after all. They were sleeping together which was strange but certainly made it easy. No one will be looking for them for a while.

  
“Kill her,” he insists. She jolts, looking at him suddenly. It’s not a surprised look but certainly upset. This really isn’t surprising at all for a guy who’ll sleep with his brother’s wife. “I’ll pay you more than Korta’s paying you. Just let me go.”

  
“Korta’s dead,” Ryan assures. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  
“You’re making a mistake,” he bites back. Ryan points his knife at the man, hushing him up immediately.

  
“Not you,” he replies and he turns his knife to point it at her instead. “You.” To her benefit, her nerves are steel. She looks at him, not flinching even in the sight of his knife, but doesn’t speak. It doesn’t surprise him that she doesn’t know. Ryan toys with his knife again and returns to his paces.

  
“Your husband thinks he owns this city,” he says. “He lies and he cheats, possibly in the same way you do, and he takes whatever he wants. Obviously, the people that _actually_ own this city don’t take too fondly to that. They’re done playing with him now.”

  
“This guy’s out of his fucking mind, don’t listen to him,” the man snaps. She gives him a sour look, clearly not having forgotten how he _just_ tried to sell her out to save himself. The knock on the front door makes them both jump and urgently look towards it for some kind of help. Ryan stops, spinning his knife in his fingers before sliding it back into its sheath.

  
“Help!” the man yells. Ryan immediately hits him hard in the face with a closed fist, knocking him unconscious. The woman jolts back, turning her body away from him as much as she can and a panicked look crosses her face.

  
“Don’t yell,” Ryan tells her gently. “I have _the_ worst headache so I would quite appreciate it if you didn’t.” After a moment of hesitation, she nods slowly. Ryan rubs his temple in his hand as he approaches the door, grabbing the cash off the decorative little table as he passes. The little pizza delivery guy smiles up at him and Ryan sighs.

  
“Jeremy,” he says. “What are you doing?”

  
“Working?” Jeremy replies though the way he says it obviously indicates he’s not sure if this is the right answer.

  
“I know you don’t work for Mama Jane’s, Jeremy,” Ryan assures him flatly. “Where is the actual delivery person?”

  
“Busy?” Jeremy says slowly, not quite sure the answer to this question, either.

  
“Stop stalking me,” Ryan says.

  
“What! I’m not!” Jeremy answers quickly. “I just saw you come in here and thought you might need some help or something, that’s all.” Ryan gives him an unconvinced look. He knows when he’s being followed and Jeremy has been following him a lot recently. This is a relatively new development, however, of which Ryan has taken as it comes.

  
“Give me that,” Ryan instructs and Jeremy sheepishly hands over the pizza he ordered. “Get in here.” Jeremy beams happily as he hurriedly hops into the house and Ryan closes the door behind him. He think the lad is worried about him after what happened at service. Well, Jeremy had started following him before that but not immediately after their first date. Ryan can’t really say what exactly caused him to decide to start doing this.

  
“Hello,” Jeremy greets the woman pleasantly. She shifts back a little so they’re not so close together. Unfortunately, she can’t reel back enough to get out of the way when Jeremy suddenly and without warning sneezes in her face. She looks abhorred. He jerks back quickly, covering his face with his hands and shaking his head. “Oh! I’m so sorry! That caught me by surprise a little, too.” Well, the plague thing makes sense.

  
“Jeremy,” Ryan says, gesturing him to have a seat somewhere else. Jeremy plops himself down on the couch. With a sigh, Ryan pulls his knife out and cuts her hands free from the chair before handing her his handkerchief. She awkwardly takes it to wipe her face with. He’s pretty sure that’s not going to prevent her from getting sick at all but it’s a little late for that now.

  
“As I said,” he repeats. “Killing both of you right now would be a waste to me. I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to torture your husband to death.”

  
“I’m okay with that,” she assures quietly, the first words Ryan’s actually heard her speak so far.

  
“If I were you, I would take as much of your husband’s money as you can get a hold of and never come back to this city again,” Ryan instructs. She nods eagerly and when he backs up, she stands. For a moment, she hesitates as if she’s not sure he’s telling the truth and that he’s not just going to kill her anyways. When he doesn’t lunge for her, she carefully but swiftly heads for the door and leaves without another word.

  
“Aw that was nice,” Jeremy grins. “Should I follow her?”

  
“What? No,” Ryan scoffs. “Leave her alone.” There’s no reason to bother her and Ryan has a feeling she’s not going to be bothering them again. Partially because he’s sure Jeremy just gave her like some sort of super virus but mostly because she clearly doesn’t have a huge foothold in her husband’s gang- she didn’t even seem to like him much. Jeremy shrugs before hopping back to his feet and approaching Ryan’s side again.

  
“The pizza guy is in the trunk if we need another one,” he assures. Ryan rubs his temples.

“No, I think I’m fine. I do need some time alone with Moonlight, though,” Ryan says. “Privately.”

  
“Oh! Sure! I’m gonna go see if there’s anything worth stealing here!” Jeremy announces. With that, he bounds off to another part of the house to busy himself. Ryan touches his forehead tiredly. There is something to enjoy about Jeremy’s company, there is no question about that, but not when he’s struggling with the worst migraine he’s ever felt trying to get actual work done. Instead, he shakes it off and pulls out his knife again. A quick puncture ends the man before he can awaken again and blood rushes out, staining the floor in a pool.

  
“Yo,” Ray greets. “You look like shit, dude.”

“My head feels like it’s splitting open,” Ryan assures, perhaps not expecting a reason but hoping for one.

“No shit, you have like two brains now or something,” Ray replies. “You really weren’t supposed to, you know, absorb a past life like that.” If it’s any consolation, and he’s sure it’s not, Ryan thoroughly regrets it now. No one else seemed to have this kind of problem and furthermore, none of them really warned him about this, either. Maybe he’s not fit for knowing his past lives. “Well uh, did you want something?”

  
“What? No, no. I mean, it’s nice being around you but you show up when I kill people and killing people is sort of- my job,” Ryan murmurs.

  
“You right,” Ray agrees. That being said, he doesn’t leave right away, either. Instead they just sort of look at each other as if expecting something else to inexplicably happen. That wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen lately. Ryan hears Jeremy break something in another part of the house and the mad scramble to hurriedly fix it. He sighs a little as Ray arches a curious brow.

  
“He’s a weird kid,” Ryan assures. “But he’s- not _good_. You know what I mean.”

  
“Sure,” Ray replies. “Hey is that for me?” He points at the pizza sitting untouched on a nearby table and Ryan nods, gesturing him to it.

  
“Sorry, can you just, I don’t know, stay here for a minute,” Ryan murmurs. “It's inane but I feel better when you're around for some reason. There's probably something not good about myself saying that but there it is.” The pizza, and the box with it, disappears rather quickly into the thing Ray calls a mouth and he makes a small, content noise. He doesn’t say anything in reply, though, only glancing around a little as Ryan rubs his head tiredly. Finally, he holds his hand out to take. Ryan looks at it and then up at Ray. He's not really sure what this means and in fact, he's not really sure he should touch Ray. Nevertheless, he takes the lad's hand.

  
Suddenly, they're somewhere else. Ryan recognises it as a hospital immediately and he looks around to try to see if he's ever been to this particular one. He doesn’t think this is Los Santos anymore. Ray begins walking down the hall and Ryan moves with him, hand in hand.

  
“You look like you belong here,” Ray says. “But they still can't see me so watch it with the talking to yourself thing.” Ryan makes a discreet nod. He's not sure what he looks like to these people, if he even looks the same to all of them, but no one bothers him even as they walk through the hospital into places they probably shouldn’t be. Ray stops them in front of the window of the nursery, looking over all the newborns quietly. If not for the fact that Ryan knows Ray can multitask infinitely, he'd feel bad about taking up his time.

  
Ryan can only watch as one of the monitors begins to make increasingly warning beeps and then suddenly doctors and nurses are panicking to do something. Even as they frantically try to save it, the heart meter gradually flattens out. Ray released Ryan's hand and with a blink of the eye, he's next to the incubator. Somehow, no one seems to walk in the same space as Ray even as they bustle around.

  
Carefully, Ray removes the little cartridge from the baby as he always does. Unlike always, however, he doesn’t bother reading it. Instead, he pulls something different out of his throat and in place of what he took, he returns a little CD. Steadily, the baby begins to breathe again and with some help from the doctors, it stabilizes and relief washes over the room. Ray returns to Ryan's side and takes his hand again.

  
“That was nice,” Ryan murmurs softly.

  
“Well, I couldn’t do it without you,” Ray replies. Ryan snorts a laugh.

  
“I didn’t exactly do anything,” he assures.

  
“You do,” Ray says. “Everyone has a natural lifespan, Ryan.” It's somewhat discombobulating to suddenly see the bars above everyone's heads. They're not numbers or timers or anything but rather take the appearance of battery symbol found on most things now a days. Some of them he sees now are still fairly full while others are already more than half empty.

  
“They're never the same. Sometimes they're only a few hours long. Sometimes shorter,” Ray explains. “But when someone dies before their life is depleted-” They're not standing in a hospital anymore. Ryan squints a little at the bright sun before blinking to adjust his eyes. The morning sun shines off the stretch of lake and Ryan hears the cars above.

  
“They leave behind a charge.” A body comes hurling past so suddenly, it actually startles Ryan a little. The figure hits the water hard but the battery that hovers over it is still full of life. “When you kill people, it gives me a charge I can give to someone more deserving.”

  
“So some people are worth more than others?” Ryan asks as he peers down into the water. “Aren't you supposed to treat everyone equal or something?” This time Ray laughs.

  
“Yeah right,” he replies. “Some people deserve a chance. Other people have already ruined theirs.”

  
“They don't deserve another chance?” Ryan asks, nodding his head to the body in the water. People up above gasp and shout as they look on in horror. Ray sighs a little.

  
“They do,” he admits. “But it's better to let them have another chance in a new life. Mortals don't like to hear it but- sometimes it doesn't get better.” How depressing. Ryan frowns a little, not really sure what to say to this. They're guaranteed to be reborn at least and, he supposes, in a way that might be better. He always thought being reborn was a punishment but he can see how it could be a chance at a better life for some people.

  
“You've never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, Ryan,” Ray says.

  
“I doubt that,” Ryan replies. “Or at least, not intentionally I haven't.”

  
“You have a greater sense of divinity than you think,” Ray assures. “Hell, man, you let that lady go.”

  
“Not because I thought she didn't deserve it,” Ryan insists. He truly had no strong feelings whether she died or not, it simply didn't benefit him to kill them both and the other guy irritated him more. Ray shrugs.

  
“Doesn’t matter why,” he promises. Again, they're suddenly somewhere else. This time, they're stood in front of a parked car and Ryan can see the lady he had just let go crying inside. Though she had looked steel nerved when dealing with Ryan, that obviously was a very good ruse.

  
“She's going to go home and she's going to tell her husband she's leaving like you told her to. She doesn’t mention you or what you did. Her husband kills her and I bring her back with the extra charge from the one you just killed. She runs far, far away from here and she does something good,” Ray tells him. “She deserves to live and you know it.”

  
“I didn’t, though,” Ryan urges. “That's coincidental.”

  
“You can think whatever you want, man, I'm telling you, you have an acute sense for who does and who doesn't deserve it,” Ray scoffs back. Ryan frowns as he watches the woman sobbing in her car. He looks at Ray again and this time, he tries to force himself to see Ray for what he really is, to push past the illusion of this form and see him honestly.

  
He does and it's awful.

  
Ray is massive. He stretches miles and miles in any direction far past where Ryan can see and overwhelms everything in his path effortlessly. There is not a single form he takes, not on a single plane, parts of him rapidly convulsing like a horrifying glitch in reality itself; flickering nearly violently in and out of a dimension, or many, that Ryan can not even fathom. He understands what Jeremy was showing him, now. There are comprehensible parts of him, too, in incomprehensible places. The large, dripping gap filled with teeth-like protrusions seems to be a mouth neither mouth shaped or teeth shaped. Eyes Ryan dare not look into or even at speckle him in droves like honey comb in some places, each one focused in a different direction, each one seeing a different thing, each one viewing a different lifetime.

  
Ryan can see faces in him, human faces, not as if they're trying to escape but rather just sleeping. His scythe, something Ryan has never actually seen Ray wield, remains raised high above the air as if to strike the earth at any second and wing-like protrusions sprout off of him in nonsensical patterns, appearing and disappearing with each flap. Then there's the time; clocks and timers counting neither up nor down, hourglasses wildly turning, rapidly spinning sundials casting shadows with no light all in cased within Ray.

  
What is more terrifying, however, is that Ray is not the only one. Ryan can see, just barely, the partial reflection of a second being just as awful and terrifying as the first in the windshield of the car.

  
“Ryan,” Ray says and Ryan urgently snaps back to his blissful illusion. It's harder than he thought it would be. He can not wrap his mind around it, he can not understand how he is even holding Ray's hand like this. He is afraid and he is- where he belongs. Carefully, Ray leans in to kiss him and Ryan makes no hesitation.

  
He sees himself and he sees Ray. Infinitely.

  
“Have you figured it out yet?”

  
Just as sudden, Ryan's standing back in the house like he never left it. Ray has gone and in his place, Jeremy stands trying to keep him propped upright.

  
“Hey buddy, maybe you want to sit down or something?” Jeremy offers. Ryan stumbles as he gets his bearings back again, his head still swimming with the image of Ray. He grabs onto Jeremy for support.

  
“Jeremy,” he says. “Take me home. Please.”

  
\- x -

  
Ryan stays at Jeremy’s house now. It's easier than convincing the lad to stop stalking him. They eat together, sleep together, and go to church together. Ryan can’t remember most of his days anymore and his mind swims with memories both his and not. He is incomplete and he can not bare it another moment. 


	9. Where the World Ends

This is where the Pig Prince is. Ryan looks up at the building, quiet and empty, and he knows. There's no more running, there's no escape, Ryan is going to kill him slowly as promised. As he makes his way through the silent, empty building though, his mind begins to wander in a way he doesn’t feel is absolutely in his control. There's no one else here, anyways; just the two of them.

  
He thinks about Jeremy, about plague, and how easy it is for him to kill. Not as the lad bound to Ray to make sacrifices to prolong his life but as a literal embodiment of disease. How easy it would be, and is, for him to spread his contamination with a single sneeze, how many people he could kill just by going to the hospital to stitch up a wound. No one would ever know it was him. How could they?

  
He thinks about Jack, about famine, and how easy it is for her to take everything from a person, every dollar, every possession, every skill and good word, leaving that person a slow, lonely death in a city overflowing with money and goods they can't have. No one would blame her, not specifically. Just another tragedy of the city they live in; just another Los Santos statistic.

  
He thinks about Geoff, about war, and how this shit city is just brimming with the sort of terrible people he could get rid of if he wanted. He doesn’t want. It's too fun to Geoff to watch these pathetic little crews tear each other apart and cannibalize each other day by day as he pits them against each other. When they point their fingers at him, it's not for the deaths, not for the suffering, it's to say he's the one with power.

  
He thinks about Ray.

  
As Ryan enters the office on the second floor, he finds his target. The Pig Prince is a big man and strong at that, easily filling the chair he sits waiting in. If Ryan was thinking better, he would have come better prepared but he hasn't. It won’t matter, really, even as the Pig Prince points his gun square at Ryan's chest. Such a cocky man, here all alone with just his pitiful little gun. His game is over.

  
“Don’t move, Vagabond,” he orders. Ryan doesn’t. He's not listening.

  
All he can hear is Geoff and Jack arguing, screaming at each other in their apartment over something so meaningless. Later, they'll hug and make up but for now, there's nothing but pure, hot rage and cutting words. He hears the vase Jack throws smash into a thousand pieces on the floor and Geoff bark to know what the hell is wrong with her, that vase was priceless.

  
“I hired you,” the Pig Prince bites sourly.

  
Ryan hears the oracles, cozy in their bed as they share their senses between hands and teeth and tongue. Every little moan and gasp and giggle as they learn each other again and again like randy teenagers. They don’t have a care in the world, why would they? Every day spent as pampered pets to war itself, being praised by the moon herself. Happiness knows no better life- not for them.

  
“You think you can just betray me like this?” he says, growing louder and more obnoxious by the second.

  
He listens to Mica, munching away on pocky and humming a small tune to herself as she grinds away something in a pedestal and mortar. Her little nest is heavy with the sound of her grinding, a pot bubbling, a candle flickering. This is second nature to her, not needing of any effort, but she puts it all in anyways. She basks in the moon's light and in return, the moon gives her blessing after blessing.

  
“I _own_ you, Vagabond!” the Pig Prince shouts.

  
Ryan can hear Jeremy, huddled up on his couch with his teeth ground in his head as he worriedly awaits to hear that Ryan is okay.

  
“Do you know who I am‽”

  
He hears Ray.

  
“Have you figured it out yet?”

  
He hears a gunshot.

  
“W-what the hell?” the Pig Prince fumbles out. Ryan glances down minutely, looking at the bullet wound in his chest. It doesn’t hurt like it usually does. In fact, he feels nothing at all. He touches it faintly but blood doesn’t come out; light does. Well, that usually doesn't happen either. The Pig Prince jerks out of the way violently, the beam of light escaping Ryan’s wound having seared a hole directly through his shirt and began to boil his skin in an instant; hotter than anything he could ever know.

  
Ryan puts his hand over the light curiously but it doesn’t burn him. He puts his finger in the wound, pulling it open even wider and allowing more of the light that shines in him to escape. The Pig Prince cowards in a corner as Ryan literally pulls himself apart, ripping the hole open far enough only so he can use his hands to make it bigger still. Light brighter than anything he's ever seen floods the room more and more by the second until finally, there is more than light.

  
From the rip Ryan’s made in his chest out stretches a wing-like appendage. It's not a wing he knows, nothing so simple, but rather an ✯ṍᙤ⍋ and it's beautiful in a way he forgot about. Further and further it extends out and then, right along side with it, an arm reaches out. It pushes at him, trying to free itself, and then it's Ryan- and then _Ryan’s_ trying to free himself. He squirms and pushes against the human husk he has been trapped in; always too small, always uncomfortable, always unnatural. Stuffed into a brain so small, it could not help but eat itself away; stuffed into a body so small, it could not help but begin to break down.

  
Little by little, Ryan frees himself from his confines, growing larger and larger by the second the more of his glowing self he uncompresses from his human prison. He fills the room with his being, his presence, and then the building and then the city and then the state. He is massive and finally, he can breathe. No longer is his vision obstructed, no longer is his hearing muffled, no longer does he feel incomplete; wrong.

  
He remembers now, the barriers around the endless void of his mind receding as he knows himself again. He remembers why he could never remember his early years; he never existed then. He remembers the body he made and stuffed himself into, every painful second as he made himself smaller and smaller still. He remembers ‘Moonlight’ and 'War’ and 'Famine’ and 'Plague’.

  
Then he speaks, a whisper as loud as a roar that cracks every window, shatters every light, and sets off car alarms blocks in every direction. He looks upon the Pig Prince and every one of his lives and he says, “You can not win. I am victory.” In fear or panic or something else, the Pig Prince shoots at him again. Ryan is unphased.

  
“I am the beginning of all ends,” he says, calmly like a whirling hurricane. “I am forever and always. I am unstoppable and absolute. After plague, there is me. After famine, there is me. After war, there is me. After death, _there is me_. I am life itself.”

  
And Ryan takes back what is rightfully his.

  
\- x -

  
Ryan goes to service with his boyfriend for the holiday. Jeremy is very pleased and happily sits alongside him as they listen to another sermon. Part way through, Ray joins them. Jack and Geoff sit in the back, not quite the kind of people who would show up otherwise. The oracles sit closer to the front so they can see the moon better and in turn, be closer to her spiritually. Mica sits a row behind them, also not exactly a church goer but content to go along with this strange expression for the holiday.

  
The moon speaks to him and Ryan smiles faintly. She says, “again and again you must experience life as it is lest you lose your way. There is no reason to feel guilty, Victory. Without death, there is no life and without life, there is no death. You can not understand giving without taking. You can not understand loss without finding.”

  
And she says, “I am so proud of you. I love you.”


	10. In Conclusion

Ryan pants softly as he pulls away again and Ray eagerly kisses at the corner of his mouth and along his jaw with hot lips.

  
“What did you see?” he asks against his skin.

  
“I saw myself,” Ryan replies, moving to kiss the nook of Ray's neck. “And you, of course.”

  
“No shit,” Ray snorts back with a laugh. As their human bodies grasp at each other,exploring one another's strange little vessels, so do their real forms. They twist and turn and mingle with one another intimately through time and space itself, blurring the lines of the two halves they are.

  
“I was a mercenary and you were a sniper,” Ryan murmurs, moving to kiss further down his chest. “You helped me find myself again. Well, I use the word ‘help’ loosely.” Again, Ray laughs and he threads his fingers into Ryan’s hair. “What about you?”

  
“I saw us,” Ray agrees as if they ever see anyone else. “You worked in a diner and always gave me free food.”

  
“I remember that one,” Ryan laughs. “You pushed me off a roof.”

  
“Accidentally,” Ray insists.

  
“Sure,” Ryan replies in amused disbelief. As he pulls Ray's legs around his waist, he brings their faces close together again, hot breath dancing between them as their lips hover. “One more?” he pants softly.

  
“Maybe two,” Ray rasps back. “The world isn’t ending that quick.” Ryan grins, pressing their lips together eagerly for another taste and their bodies and minds meld once again in bliss.

  
He sees himself and he sees Ray. Another lifetime re-lived with the sort of intimacy nothing else can give. Everything about them folds into one another as they twist and turn among the sheets. War and Famine and Plague ravage the world while they're busy, preparing it for a new one and with it, for a new life.

  
They used to be a single entity, a single deity, he and Ray. They used to be everything and they gave and they gave until no longer could their form contain everything that they were. So in two they broke, splinters of them scattering across everything that ever was, and in each half they held onto the strings they needed to always find each other; death and life. They have nothing left to give anymore, not without completely destroying themselves, but they still linger. They still usher the dead onto new life and new life on to death; keeping the world in perpetual movement and thus keeping it alive. They still crave each other, always wanting to be one again but never enough to ever take back what they gave for it.

  
Some people insist they’ve see death. Some say they've seen life. Others claim that death has finally overcome life itself and that the end is here.

  
Ryan doesn’t consider himself much of a religious man, though, and certainly not enough to worship anything. How ridiculous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to go up ten days in a row rip


End file.
